Chapter 5 Town & Village Centres Placemaking & Regeneration

5.0 Introduction
 

Wicklow has a strong and diverse network of towns and villages that perform a variety of roles and functions for their residents and the wider rural communities. The strengths of these settlements lie in their capacity to accommodate a mix of uses including residential, employment, community and other functions in a compact, walkable environment that provides a high quality of life. They are a hub for social, economic and administrative functions in addition to providing places for recreation, worship and leisure.  

Town and village centres have experienced significant challenges to retain vibrancy and vitality. The National Planning Framework (NPF) places a strong emphasis on strengthening Ireland’s urban structure by targeting both population and employment growth in urban areas, promoting urban infill and brownfield development and ensuring that towns and villages are attractive, liveable, well designed, high quality places that are home to diverse and integrated communities that enjoy a high quality of life and wellbeing. The NPF acknowledges the importance of rural towns and villages in terms of their economic, administrative and social functions and seeks to activate the potential for renewal and strengthen and diversify rural towns as a focus for local housing and employment growth and regeneration.  
Towns and villages are continually evolving. This is essential for their survival. It is important that Wicklow’s planning policy is flexible to allow town centres to evolve and diversify.  

It is therefore the strategy of this plan to: 
Activate the potential for regeneration and renewal of our town and village centres, creating resilient, adaptable and vibrant places with a strong focus on creating compact towns and villages. Planning policy for Wicklow’s town and village centres will: 

• Protect and maintain the future viability of town and village centres by facilitating a diverse mix of uses;
• Embrace the historic character and heritage attributes of town and village centres and strengthen the strong sense of place;
• Support and enhance the potential of our towns and villages as focal points for the local community, for tourism and culture;
• Ensure that town and village centres are attractive places to live in, to work in and to visit, easy to get to, easy to walk and cycle within and are competitive places to conduct business;
• Enable town and village centres to address economic challenges and exploit opportunities;
• Maximise the use of public assets;
• Create compact towns and villages by reusing existing buildings and maximising the potential of infill and brownfield sites;
• Promote healthy placemaking and prioritise walking and cycling;
• Use public realm improvements to stimulate investment and economic confidence;
• Facilitate an expansion of convenience and comparison floorspace within the County to reduce leakage of expenditure from County Wicklow to other counties;
• Guide and promote the expansion of retail floorspace first and foremost within the core retail areas / existing town and village centre areas and thereafter in accordance with the sequential approach to retail development;
• Require a high quality of design in all centres.

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