3. Economic Development and Employment
• Support of the town’s Tourism initiatives will help attract visitors to the town, bringing business opportunity and economic growth.
• Good quality, innovative affordable housing will attract younger families to settle in the town and utilize the good, established school facilities
• Providing working/studio facilities for graduates from Craft and Pottery schools would encourage employment and development
• Agriculture?
• High speed internet would attract businesses to the town and allow for home based and online work patterns such as e-commerce. Additionally, high speed internet is required for all town/village centers to ensure central retail/office opportunities are maximized.
• Thomastown would benefit from an IT hub / co-working development in the center of town.
• For example, businesses in Thomastown have felt an effect from the Post office moving out of the town center. Outlying developments that will take people out of the town centers should be discouraged.
• Kilkenny City would be an appropriate town to be put forward as a ‘support city’ to Dublin. The parks, river, festivals, retail, restaurants, etc. all provide a good quality of life without the crazy housing prices and congestion of Dublin. Thomastown could provide spill-over support for Kilkenny City for this venture.
• “Business improvement districts” could be set up by the council to help establish an identity, ie. “The Square” in Thomastown. It would then be up to the businesses within the district to work together to create a directory and improve the streetscape, signage, lighting, benches, green space, etc. to make their district a pleasant place to visit. The goals and efforts would need to be coming from the business owners within the district but if the framework is established by the council it could be enough to spark some cooperation amongst the local businesses. It is very hard for a single business to start an initiative like this but if the council takes the first step then at least there’s a chance it could take off.