Retailers" plea to postpone Navan town centre project

A call for the proposed improvement works on Market Square and Watergate Street in Navan to be postponed until after Christmas has been made by the Navan Retailers" Association. As the recession begins to affect local businesses, the town"s traders are very worried that prolonged works in the area will have a devastating effect on business following a dismal trading period for some retailers in Navan last year as a result of the work on Kennedy Place, which removed a large number of car parking spaces. Brendan O"Dea of the Navan Retailers" Association said that the best time for such works was very early on in the year when business was slack anyway. 'Christmas is the most important time for any trader and the Christmas shopping period begins in November and, if any of that is lost, it has a detrimental effect on business,' he said. He said local traders were worried that if the work continued up until Christmas, it would cause traffic chaos, reduce parking and devastate business for ther second year in a row. 'If people find that it is difficult to get in and out of town or to get parking, they will go elsewhere,' he said. 'We need to make it as easy as possible for shoppers to come into town. Last Christmas was an extremely difficult time for local businesses and we don"t want this to happen again,' he said. 'We are delighted that improvement works are planned for the town but we have to ensure businesses survive. You only have to look along the main streets to see how many good businesses have already gone,' he said. In a letter to this newspaper this week appealing to the council to postpone the Watergate Street and Market Square project, he said: 'Christmas 2007 for many traders is best forgotten and like the Celtic Tiger is gone. Traders - all traders - must now plan for the difficult conditions facing everyone in 2008 with the loss of confidence, unemployment and uncertainty.' 'We must ensure that all local retailers get the maximum of whatever spending Christmas will bring and make it as attractive and accessible for our local custom to shop locally,' he said. He said it was crucial that the traffic chaos associated with roadworks such as those planned for Watergate Street be avoided in November and December. 'We ask that the proposed work on Watergate Street be postponed to give the retail sector and our customers a chance to offer what we as retailers know is as good as is available, and allow our customers, who have been very loyal, the chance to shop locally,' he said. Mr O Dea also said the future use of the new Kennedy Place Civic Space also was crucial to the survival of many businesses. He said the planners had got it wrong in only marking out spaces at the periphery of the civic space, when there was clearly adequate space for up to 40 cars in the central area and he called on officials to mark it out properly.