Ms Orla Murphy:

Our statement covered a report we did, as part of the UCD centre for Irish towns, evaluating the first six pilot towns that took part in the town centre living initiative. It was back in 2018 or 2019. We have drafted that report for the national town centre first office. A positive of this approach is that when there is a combination of a local authority working with the community, engaging with communities through town teams, listening to knowledge and perspectives on the ground, a targeted task force in the local authority and the resources to back that, huge gains can be achieved. One example in the report is Cappoquin, a small town in County Waterford. It has been trialling an innovative model where the local authority works in very close collaboration with the community regeneration company and philanthropic funding. It used compulsory purchase order powers after surveying the town and listening to the perspectives of the town. It identified one project where it could use a combination of negotiating with property owners and using CPOs on properties to redevelop a cluster of properties in the town. It then used experience in the local authority such as the architects to bring it through the planning and Part 8 processes. It is now being redeveloped and it will be for resale. The proceeds will go to buy new properties. There is a rolling, confidence-building collaboration in quite a small town. Apparently it has been really positive.

A larger example, which might be more similar to the scale of Drogheda, was in the smaller town of Castleblayney in County Monaghan. The same approach is taken there, whereby the local authority began with a close survey of the town. It then worked with the town team, again involving community engagement, and leveraged small projects on top of one another. It applied for URDF funding and town centre living initiative funding, did public realm projects, refurbished the public library and used compulsory purchase orders on some houses. They are now building all of these projects one on one. As a result, the impact is huge. It takes time but when there is the combination of dedicated local authority integrated task forces working with the people in the place, leveraging funding schemes and all the skills available in the local authority to make it happen, you can really see gains. It is not happening everywhere but-----