Mr. Karl Mitchell:

As we said earlier, it is taking a street-by-street approach. Lessons will be learned. Using those two particular streets, Middle Abbey Street is predominantly retail. There is historical retail with living over the shop. The Luas line intersects it as well, which creates positives and negatives for a street of that scale. North Frederick Street is part of the Georgian core and has a history of living going back centuries. For the city council, the first thing is the data scrape, getting as much information as we can about ownership, history and planning applications.

Are people living there? Who is living there? What tenure mixes are in those streets? Why have retail outlets stopped trading? What are the rationales for that? What do owners believe the future of retail and living in the city looks like? The idea is that there is information collation initially. From there the idea is a concierge service. We are going to tell owners we want to help them to help themselves. Part of that is making sure owners are aware of what Government schemes are available to them. Within that concierge service we are going to bring together different disciplines. If an owner needs architectural support, planning support or administrative support, we will offer that. On the other side, we will also make property owners aware of their obligations, the legal requirements and the duties we expect of them. We will not be remiss in tackling owners by saying we want to work with them, but if they do not, we are going to bring to bear whatever powers or levers we have to enable vibrant, active and safe streetscapes and for those things to occur in the city.