The Future For Waterford

We are all well aware of the current diffilculties with Waterford Crystal but whether we like it or not Waterford City is intrinsically linked with that brand.

Despite the factories contraction in recent years, our city has continued to be hitched to those crystal wagons for better or worse. And how bad? It is a great brand and we, of all people, cannot give up on it.

We need to work together to make sure that Waterford Crystal continues to deliver for Waterford City. I mentioned in a blog some months ago that a move for Waterford Crsytal into the City centre would represent a win-win situation. This is still my contention.

I realise that Waterford Crsytal will never, for us, be what it once was but we must salvage for the city and for our heritage, what we can of the tourist element of the once mighty factory. We must keep 'the Glass' and the memory of 'the Glass' alive. People must be able to come to Waterford and experience an element of the factory tour, the Gallery showrooms and the restaurant.

We can not accept that the long and intertwined story of Waterford and Waterford Crystal does not have many more chapters.

But neither can we rely any more on the easy access to the hundreds of thousands of visitors that the Glass automatically delivered. We must work on what will be Waterfords' attractiveness for visitors into the future, alongside what can be salvaged of Waterford Crystal.

Why will people come here? What can we offer them? What has Waterford to offer that no other City has? What should be the defining attraction for our city, our 'USP' (Unique Selling Point) to try and both replace and support Waterford Crystal .

We are Irelands Oldest City - and all that that entails i.e. Viking heritage, historical importance, City Walls, Strongbow & Aoife etc. etc. This can and should be a very strong selling point. We have plans for the Viking Triangle and we should push ahead with this in so far as possible (in the absence of the Gateway Innovation Fund which was 'deffered' (read abandoned) by the Government).

That and 'free entertainment'! Entertainment - Spraoi can and should be the driving force for 'Waterford - City Of Summer' or the 'Funny South East' or some such. Can we not have free activity every weekend of the summer in Waterford and make us a city thats always buzzing?

And I'm not talking about landing the whole resonsibility onto Spraoi - we have a professional theatre company in Red Kettle; we have a vibrant youth arts & bands scene; we have a myriad of World Class choirs & bands. We have dance companies, artists, the market traders. We need a co-ordinated, vibrant, summer long city of activity and life and energy and music. We have the tools to make it happen. All we need is the buy-in of all the major (and minor) players in the city.

Perhaps the retail community would support such an initiative? Perhaps the Chamber would throw their weight behind it.

Yes it would take money and will and effort. But what else can we compete with? On shopping? Every dog and duck town is competing on shopping thse days.

On weather? After our lovely monsoon summer? We need to look at making our city an all-weather city. If wetter is the way of the future we need to meet that challenge head on. Couldn't we come up with a design for a light, transparent system for John Roberts Square and other central areas that would rain-proof us? Why not? It's not rocket science. We need to start thinking about what we can do - not what we can not.

We need to start pulling and working together, putting our cards - and yes, our money - on the table and get out there and start competing.

Come to Waterford (or H2O4D - as someone put it to me in a recent email), Irelands' Oldest City - a city full of life and entertainment where there is always something free for visitors going on. Where the rain won't soak you and the fun never stops!

How bad? One thing is for sure... We have to underpin Waterfords' future ourselves because there is no queue forming to do it for us.