Pedestrianisation key to Mayo county town's Main Street upgrade

Castlebar looks set for change.

A masterplan for Main Street is expected, and the leadership within the council appears ready to tackle the malaise and make the town an attractive place to live and visit once again.

The announcement by the new head of the Castlebar Municipal District, David Mellett, at the Accelerate event has sparked plenty of talk online.

Nothing else gets people talking quite like it, and not just those who live in the town, but the thousands who commute there daily to work and the many more who come to shop.

Castlebar isn't unique. Like all shopping towns, it will never outpace the millions spent on online sales. For many, the hassle of parking and beating the queues is no match for a few quick clicks and next day delivery.

Still, the town must persevere, most importantly for the people who live and work there.

No one in the county wants to see Castlebar's Main Street continue to fall into dereliction, and the talk of a masterplan comes just as the town has received a much needed bolt of investment from Staunton's and the demolition of the trio of eyesores on Ellison Street is complete.

What Castlebar sorely lacks is an area free from cars.

In my view, one of the best advancements to the town has been the awnings at Market Square.

Walk by at any time of the day and you'll see each of the seating areas fully occupied with young people, and trouble is rarely seen. The only gripe is the inconsistent rules for people crossing the road, and the struggle pedestrians and drivers have deciphering where each other will come from.

The calls for pedestrianisation from Supermac's up toward the turn for Castle Street are growing louder. This is where what is currently Castlebar's least impressive, but potentially game-changing, piece of infrastructure could come into use: the laneways.

They have been a regular gripe. Besides Market Square, they're the one area away from cars where people congregate, and they're what many use to get through the town from the car parks. But that's the issue. Market Square benefits from consistent passive surveillance from cars and shoppers.

The laneways, despite repeated calls and morning cleans, remain an area of grime, dirt and a proliferation of empty vape packets. It doesn't have to be that way.

Castlebar Municipal District has already engaged architects ACT, the Ballina-based firm which, when making plans for the north Mayo capital, aimed to use the lanes of Ballina as a source of social get-togethers and movement through the town.

Castlebar's two largest public car parks, at Hoban's and Castle Street, could be linked, encouraging people to leave their cars and spend more time and money in the centre of the town.

It's still utterly bizarre that the centre of Castlebar falls empty come six o'clock. With pedestrianisation a potential future covering, that area could become a hive of activity and social life, and a space for people of all ages to meet and gather.

Talk is cheap. Many have heard of such plans before and, as with any change to the public realm, there will be robust debate. Traders, motorists and residents will all have their say, and rightly so.

The most important factor is that, after years of stagnation, momentum appears to be building from a combination of industrious private investors and a focused local authority.

Castlebar stands to see some major benefits and finally be in line for future URDF funding to help alleviate the degradation, dereliction and hollowing out of the town centre.

One aspect is becoming clear, however: the quietness of Hopkins Road, particularly where Argos used to be.

It was once the centre of commerce and the reason for the hollowing out of Main Street. People would be correct to fear that once Main Street is back up and running with a hustle and bustle, the newer area of town will suffer in return.

That may simply be the natural life cycle of a town, or perhaps it points to an over-proliferation of commercial space.

Still, Hopkins Road doesn't have the same issues as Main Street, thanks to the modern apartments above the units. On Main Street, grants have had to be introduced to encourage owners to renovate smaller units and get people living in the centre of the town.

That may be the real lesson, and it brings the six o'clock problem full circle. A town centre with people living in it doesn't empty when the shops close.

Homes above units, a car-free space to gather and laneways people are happy to walk through all point the same way.