An expert report has urged planning authorities to control the growth of out-of-town stores to prevent urban dereliction and reduce the growth of shopping traffic on motorways.
The impetus towards big shopping centres in the countryside is escalating as the State spends billions of pounds on motorways, yet town centres are being neglected and people without cars are facing social exclusion, argues the author of the report, Prof Frank Convery of University College Dublin's Environmental Institute.
In "Large Scale Out-of-Town Shopping Developments In Ireland - Issues and Choices", commissioned by the Musgrave Group, Prof Convery says that most local authorities are likely to support such out-of-town shopping developments simply because they need the rates.
Mr Michael Campbell, the director-general of RGDATA, the independent grocers' group, said his organisation had also found that local authorities were concerned with the immediate prospect of increasing the rates base.
Prof Convery warns that large out-of-town shopping developments have the potential to cause the "collapse" of small and medium-sized towns around the State. While cities such as Dublin, Cork and Galway, which have sizeable "tourist bases" would not suffer too badly, other towns would "wither".
There is, he says, a danger that local authorities will not act together in planning on a regional basis. In the greater Dublin area, he says, this would involve the authorities in Meath, Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow working out their development requirements together.
Unfortunately, he says, this seldom happens.
He says the recent decision by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, to impose a limit on the size of certain shopping developments is "useful". The recent retail planning guidelines, drawn up for Mr Dempsey by consultants Roger Tym and Partners and Jonathan Blackwell and Associates, are a "start".
But he warns that "families without a car risk becoming economically, socially and culturally isolated if increasingly stranded without shops and related services.
"There is the additional danger of the emergence of segregated shopping facilities - with upmarket malls for affluent areas and retail warehouses for the less affluent."
In his 40-page report he concludes that more decision-making at regional level is necessary and argues that balanced development would require factors including:
A national urban policy framework incorporating a policy on retailing;
Environmental impact assessments which evaluate employment and the commercial rate base of superstores;
Fiscal supports for inner-city communities near motorways to promote an alternative shopping infrastructure;
More effective enforcement of planning controls;
More research into the options available in retail developments.