Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Government recently published Town Centre First - A Policy Approach for Irish Towns. The Policy contains 33 actions which will give our towns the tools and resources they need to become more viable and attractive places in which to live, work, socialise and run a business.

Action 4 of the new policy refers to the establishing of a National Town Centre First Office to assist in policy delivery and implementation and coordinate stakeholder engagement at a national level. This Office is currently being established with the recruitment process for the National Town Centre First Coordinator who will head up the National Office underway. In support of this, the recruitment of Town Regeneration Officers within individual local authorities will be undertaken in the coming months.

Action 6 of Town Centre First (TCF) refers to the provision of best practice examples and other resources through the creation of a National Toolkit to assist in the implementation of the TCF policy.  Action 6 includes the development of ‘a national, integrated and scaled-up Health Check Model which utilises existing progress through the Heritage Council’s Collaborative Town Centre Health Check approach and builds a national database on our towns’. The National TCF Office is specified as being the lead responsible agency in this regard.

Once established, the National Town Centre First Office will formulate its Annual Implementation Plan (Action 29) and outline its work programme for assisting in TCF implementation. It is anticipated that progressing Action 6 and the identified Health Check Model will be part of this work.