NEIGHBOURHOOD CENTRES
What will be in the Neighbourhood Centres?
That's anyones guess.
At the meetings BNCDG attended, the services appeared to have been already decided upon by BRL.
There are supposed to be Five Neighbourhood Centres. These are supposed to include local shops so that you don't have to travel far to get the odd pint of milk or a newspaper. We believe that for this kind of shop, Five Centres is not enough. You only have to look at the number of van shops to see how many local shops people need.
Yet BRL has not provided details of how the Van Shops will be kept.
The Bottom Line
The Bottom Line, for any business that sets up in a Neighbourhood Centre is that it has to make enough profit to stay open. How much profit it makes depends on the number of people using the centre. So a Centre could support a newsagents, but not all Centres could support a Chemist. (Think of how often you would buy milk, or sweets for children compared to buying medicine).
That's why there are only 2 Chemist Shops in Ballymun. These Chemist Shops will probably want to stay in the Shopping Centre or be on the Main Street where they will get more business.
More Chemists would be nice
but BRL can not make Chemists open up in the Neighbourhood Centres.
It is up to Chemists to decide if they want to locate in the Neighbourhood Centres and they will only do that if they can make enough profit in them.
A newsagents would get enough business in one Neighbourhood Centre.
There should be more shops dotted throughout the estate just as the van shops are at present.
So...
So it makes more sense to have more but smaller Neighbourhood Centres offering Newsagent-type shops. This way, the Neighbourhood Centres would survive. Chemists, and other less-often demanded services should be located between the Neighbourhood areas so that two neighbourhoods could use them. This would ensure that the Chemists would survive in the new Centres. This would also apply for, say, Grocery Shops and Clothes shops.
BUT CONSIDER THIS
Neighbourhood Centres, of the type proposed by BRL, will help keep the Ballymun Community divided. After regeneration, there will not be one Ballymun Community, but five smaller, less troublesome communities. No one wants this.
We want the Neighbourhood Centres. But the current plan has to change to be more friendly towards the people of Ballymun
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