{"id":638267,"date":"2026-08-15T07:24:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T07:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/638267\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T07:24:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T07:24:20","slug":"the-main-street-was-a-very-different-place-irelands-growing-dereliction-clear-to-see-in-bray-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/638267\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Main Street was a very different place\u2019: Ireland\u2019s growing dereliction clear to see in Bray \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a> recently accused local authorities of not doing enough to tackle \u201cthe scourge of dereliction\u201d and vacant properties in Irish towns.<\/p>\n

The Minister for Finance and Wicklow<\/a> TD does not have to look far for evidence of urban decay.<\/p>\n

There are two buildings in a shabby state either side of his constituency office on Quinsborough Road, Bray<\/a>. One is the old Shoe Zone two doors away. The other is a building directly across the road, which at least is covered by a mural depicting Bray in times past. Shoe Zone has planning permission for a betting shop.<\/p>\n

Last June, Harris announced the Revenue Commissioners would in future collect the derelict sites tax as local authorities have not been efficient in doing it. The Government was \u201cangry and frustrated\u201d at local councils for \u201cbadly failing\u201d on dereliction, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow sickening is it if you\u2019re a young person trying to buy a home and you\u2019re living in a neighbourhood or a community or driving by boarded-up buildings, some of which are public buildings?\u201d<\/p>\n

Derelict Ireland: An emptiness in Irish towns<\/p>\n

Dereliction is a blight at any time but it is particularly troubling in a housing crisis when so many people are seeking a home of their own.<\/p>\n

Why are so many buildings left vacant, and what can be done?<\/p>\n

In this series, The Irish Times looks at vacancy and dereliction in towns across the four provinces of Ireland. Once-thriving towns are being hollowed out by shuttered businesses, many of them unable to compete with large retail chains or online operators. Reports from Wicklow, Roscommon, Cork and Donegal examine the challenges, as well as potential solutions to bring boarded-up streets back to life.<\/p>\n

Wicklow County Council<\/a> has consistently had the fewest number of sites on its derelict sites register, which each of the 31 local authorities in the State is expected to keep. <\/p>\n

There are just four sites on the council\u2019s derelict sites register \u2013 there were two until a few weeks ago. These sites are supposed to be subject to an annual levy of 7 per cent of their value. <\/p>\n

\"AA vacant premises across the road from Minister for Finance Simon Harris’s constituency office in Bray <\/p>\n

Nobody believes Wicklow has only four derelict properties, not even the council itself, which states that the current register is \u201cnot reflective of all sites across the county that may potentially meet the definition of a derelict site under the Derelict Sites Act 1990\u2033.<\/p>\n

The council has introduced new procedures for the management of derelict sites and has allocated more staff to \u201cactively pursue cases throughout the county\u201d. <\/p>\n

It is now looking at 50 sites countywide and Bray will soon be inspected. <\/p>\n

Bray is now Ireland\u2019s 10th biggest urban settlement with a population of 34,000 people. Given its proximity to Dublin and to the sea, it should be one of the most desirable places in Ireland to live in. <\/p>\n

When The Irish Times asked members of the Bray Open Forum about properties in the town that were either derelict or vacant, we received upwards of 80 replies.<\/p>\n

The general tenor of the response from locals is that the town is looking down-at-heel, the Victorian shelters along the seafront are in a bad state and there is too much vacancy and dereliction. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe old Anvil site on Bray’s Main Street is showing signs of years of vacancy and neglect <\/p>\n

What constitutes dereliction? Neither of the two vacant properties close to Harris\u2019s constituency office is on the derelict sites register. Nor are two white-washed buildings on Castle Street outside the town opposite the shopping centre, one of which has ivy growing out of the windows. <\/p>\n

The Anvil building, a hardware shop that was a prominent fixture on Main Street for nearly 50 years, closed in 2020 and is looking particularly shabby. Across the road from it is the old cake shop, which is closed and has paint peeling from the walls. <\/p>\n

The old Celtic Bookmakers has tell-tale vegetation sprouting from cracks in the flat roof. There are other sites on Main Street that are vacant and for let or for sale. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Celtic Bookmakers on Bray’s Main Street has been vacant for many years and there is vegetation growing from the roof <\/p>\n

Local resident Ciaran Hogan has been chronicling changes on Main Street since 2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Main Street was a very different place. Anvil was a homeware store trading, Spoons\u2019 cakes was a big hit with kids and parents alike, O\u2019Brien\u2019s offered lunch and coffee, Keegan\u2019s bakery was for anyone with a sweet tooth, and a dozen more small businesses run by locals giving their all in business and building the fabric of community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow in the summer of 2026 all of those mentioned and many more have closed down, not to be replaced by anything. Those shops have all lay vacant for half a decade. Something is wrong with Bray if the Main Street has such visible signs of neglect and destitution for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bray is not alone in suffering from vacancy and dereliction, but Hogan contrasts Bray, which has a vacancy rate higher than the national average (15.2 per cent v 14.6 per cent), with nearby Greystones, which has a vacancy rate of just 5.3 per cent. <\/p>\n

The town\u2019s great hope was the Bray Central Shopping Centre, which opened after much delay in 2023 and gained its anchor tenant Penneys in 2024. The five-screen Arc Cinema is scheduled to open in November this year \u2013 the town has no cinema to date despite its increasing population. <\/p>\n

Hogan contrasts the thriving seafront with Main Street and says the solution is to market Bray as a tourism and shopping destination. This would draw tourists from the seaside area into the town centre. <\/p>\n

He also believes that Bray should learn from how Greystones has managed to avoid vacancy. <\/p>\n

\u201cBray needs an immediate and rapid intervention because the current course we\u2019re on will see the town rot from the core outwards, as many have done before,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The mayor of Wicklow, Cllr Caroline Winstanley, has been living in Bray for 15 years. She believes Bray has a vacancy, not a dereliction, problem. \u201cIt\u2019s a tricky thing. To be classed as a derelict property, it has to be in a really bad state of repair,\u201d she explained, adding, though, that too many places have been allowed to remain vacant for too long. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be allowing vacancy for this length of time,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\"MayorMayor of Wicklow Cllr Caroline Winstanley believes towns need to reimagine their main streets <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first [county council] budget we were looking at the relief that businesses were getting if their shops were vacant. They were getting 60 per cent relief on their commercial rates; we have since reduced that to 20 per cent,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIs that still too much of an incentive to keep a place vacant?\u201d she asks. \u201cFor some people there are not enough consequences for having a premises vacant. Maybe they are waiting to get the best rent or to sell it eventually, but it is not great for us who are living here to see an empty building.\u201d <\/p>\n

She believes all towns are struggling with how to reinvent their main streets in the internet era of online shopping. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy. I think we still haven\u2019t got our heads around about how we could use our main streets differently. We do have to adapt because we have to accept that most people shop online now. It\u2019s not easy for shop owners. It\u2019s definitely different.\u201d <\/p>\n

As a Social Democrats councillor, she says she and her party support the Government\u2019s above-the-shop initiative to convert vacant spaces into accommodation. This will have the twin virtues of providing much-needed accommodation while also enlivening town centres. <\/p>\n

A possible temporary solution to the problem of vacancy is \u201cmeanwhile use\u201d \u2013 a vacant property is leased with a peppercorn rent for a pop-up shop or art space on the basis that the same premises will revert to a retail outlet if a tenant can be found, she believes. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis will give us some vibrancy on the streets and this will benefit the community. We need to be reimagining what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris recently accused local authorities of not doing enough to tackle \u201cthe scourge of dereliction\u201d and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[945,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,44,7,8,946,64009],"class_list":["post-638267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-bray","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-simon-harris","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-wicklow","tag-wicklow-county-council"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117098334396737269","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}