Fancy spending the day shopping for half-price fashion wear in a centre with plenty of variety, quality and quantity? The latest concept fashion in clothing shopping will hit Ireland next year when factory outlet centres in Rathdowney, Co Laois, and Killarney, Co Kerry, are built.
However, the construction of a third such centre, proposed for Dublin's doorstep, at Goffs, near Kill village, Co Kildare, is turning into a fight for the soul of nearby Naas.
Naas traders are using well-researched objections to fight the developers, Irish International Tourist Outlets, professionally-produced application for a "village" with 45 shops.
The issue has turned into a major planning battle. One side claims the centre will invigorate the county administrative capital, the other believes it will kill it. Both groups have employed a PR agency and retained teams of town planners.
Internationally, there has been significant success among so-called factory outlet centres selling last season's and end-of-line merchandise from high profile brands such as Aquascutum, Versace, Ralph Polo Lauren, Fred Perry, Donna Karan and Moss Brothers.
Value Retail, a British/US company investing in the Kildare developers Irish International, has interests in centres in Britain, Europe and the US.
"We would choose some lesser names, but we would have a core of maybe 20 extremely well known international brands," says Mr Malcolm Hockaday, planning director of Value Retail. "We cannot have too many of these things because there is only so much excess stock. After 20 years in the States, it is still only 2 per cent of the fashion market." Ms Margaret-Anne Minty formerly ran a boutique in Oxford where, she says, she was left with stock "even if you gave it away". Now she runs the Cerruti shop in Value Retail's factory outlet centre in Bicester, Oxfordshire.
"The concept is brilliant in that you are giving end-of-lines and last summer's stock a second opportunity to be sold," she says. "The only difference is that the stock is 50 per cent or 70 per cent off. If they are fairly classic clothes, it does not matter if they are a season off."
The planning permission application for the Co Kildare site, originally made on June 25th, is for a £20 million single-storey complex development. It comprises 45 factory outlet retail units, a coffee shop, a restaurant, and a tourist information office with an ATM facility.
The proposers, who are also involved in the Bicester project, believe the centre will be good for Naas and the county, bringing in an extra 1.3 million visitors and creating up to 400 jobs. The project is supported by the MidlandsEast regional Tourist Authority, Co Kildare Failte and Goffs Bloodstock Sales. Goffs has indicated it may proceed with a hotel on a site adjacent to the proposed centre. It stands to sell an 8,000 sq mtr site to the developers if planning permission is granted.
Mr Robert Griffin, group sales director, believes that: "There is a considerable material empathy between our business and that of the applicants; that each is supportive of the other, that the increased employment will be a boost to this part of Co Kildare and that the outlet village will be of very considerable economic benefit both to the Kill/Naas area and to Co Kildare."
The planned centre's location at Goff's, three miles from Naas and on a major thoroughfare, is an impediment to its success at the planning stage.
"It is likely that the proposed development will reduce accessibility to the city centre which is contrary to DTI policy," says the Dublin Transport Office states.
The office's opinion is that, contrary to the developers' view, it is likely that "this development would attract most of its customers from the resident populations of Dublin and mideast region..." It says that the traffic impact has been underestimated.
The core opposition group, members of the specially-formed Naas and District Independent Retailers Association (NADIRA), says the project will turn the town into a backwater, encouraging its population to shop elsewhere.
NADIRA has submitted 17 planning objections, more than half the total, and has collected 145 names of traders in petitions. Also among the objectors are Maynooth Chamber of Commerce and Mr Sean Power TD who is "not convinced" that the project would be of enormous benefit to the area. The objection submitted by the group's planning consultant says that the Kill development contravenes the Kildare County Development Plan, being an "out-of-town shopping centre location within an agriculturally zoned site".
One objector, Mr Kieran Conlon, of Conlon Sports, Naas, says that "culture and Irish heritage will be nowhere in evidence" in what will be "a group of discount shops". Lancefort Co, the Dublin-based company set up by conservationists to contest planning issues with environmental implications, questions the "tourist" aspect. Tenants in west Dublin's shopping centres do not seem unduly worried at the prospect of the factory centre.
The marketing manager of Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, Mr Aidan Grimes, sees no threat in the proposed location, because of it being "that bit away". Mr Conor Kinnerk, director of the Tallaght Square Shopping Centre, says traders there are maintaining "a watching brief".
The planning permission application includes a tourism marketing plan, emphasising the growth in numbers of overseas tourists to Ireland: it has increased from 1.88 million in 1986 to 4.68 million in 1996, "growth of nearly 150 per cent". Overseas tourists would account for about 60 per cent of all trade, the developers believe.
The Environmental Impact Statement, submitted by Irish International Tourist Outlets, says: "The Kildare Tourism Outlet Village would not only have its own intrinsically Irish identity but also enjoy the benefit of membership in an internationally marketed family of quality factory outlet villages."
The battle lines have become clearer since November 4th, after Irish International Tourist Outlets submitted further information to the planners, who are bracing themselves for a decision on the divisive issue, carrying with it the potential to have the biggest effect on the town since the bypass was opened in 1983.
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