Shuttered shop fronts and dying main streets
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Why are local shops and services disappearing in Irish towns?
As towns and communities across Ireland continue to grow, concerns are being raised about the loss of local shops and essential services, with businesses closing their doors and amenities slowly disappearing. What does that mean for the communities that rely on them? Our reporter Florence Kojai has been looking into it. She joins me now in the studio. Morning, Florence. Morning, David. Uh you've been talking to a number of residents in one Dublin town where several services have closed in quite a short space of time.
Yeah, David, that's right. So several centre services in Stepside Village have either stopped operating or have had to move outside of the area. Within the last eighteen months, the community has lost its ophthalmist and the local GP. Then just two months ago, the local centra, which was actually nicknamed by the residents as DES Kennedy Centra due to DES's long-standing ownership, also closed its doors. And then on Monday, only four Days ago, the only post office in the area also stopped operating without any prior notice. So I spoke to residents and not only were they shocked by the most recent closure, but several of them told me that the gradual disappearance of these services feels as if they're slowly losing a part of their community.
I've lived here for twenty-five years and uh I would say several times a week someone from my family would would be coming to uh to the shop here in in Step Aside and the post uh and or the post office. So it's uh uh really uh a a big shock to us that this happened and um I think that um the village is at the heart of the community and the shop and the post office were kind of at the heart of that. So i it we feel very much lost without it. The post office was here in Centre at the back of the shop and again shock to the community and sadness and I would even go as far as say grief that the post office was now gone and I think people were so upset to see
How have the recent closures in Stepside Village affected residents?
the Kennedy family that they love so much and they have had such a relationship with over the last number of years to exit like that. Centre was more than a shop and Des Kennedy was more than the proprietor of that shop. He was a community or is a community man and everybody felt welcome here. So it's kinda sad since I built bike trails, me and my friends behind the centra and now we have nowhere to get food or water or drinks. When it really became an issue for me was when my local G P closed. I loved the fact that I could walk to the GP um just for health reasons and for community. I don't think any of the residents can understand how all of this area is being developed um for properties but at the same time the amenities are reducing, reducing, reducing.
I do think this is an issue and I would hope that for, you know, whatever reason that local authorities may look at this issue and see the impact that it's having on local communities.
Residents a step aside there. And Florence, you there was reference there to the local GP who had to move her service out of the area and you spoke to her.
I did. Um now Doctor Fiona Grant now runs Step Med at the Beacon in Stallorgan, but her practice was formerly known as Stepside Medical and used to be literally in the heart of the village. I asked her about the move and what she thinks that the loss of a local GP means for the community and for the patients who relied on having that care so nearby.
I um started my practice in Step Aside in two thousand and nine. I have had an evolving team of great colleagues and professionals that have come through the practice. We've given our practice one hundred percent of our effort to provide good care to the community. Um but unfortunately last year we had to move. It's devastating. I mean it was devastating personally to me. I know a lot of patients were very upset when I when I had to leave Stepiside. My patients and the residents of Steppaside and the surrounding areas did value having a doctor in the village, did value having their corner shop and their post office in the village. They relied on us, they had easy access to us, and unfortunately that is no longer the case.
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