Independent Councillor Joe O’Riordan raised some eyebrows at Waterford Council’s Plenary meeting for March, when he said he was “appalled” to see ‘Shop Waterford’ signs in Dungarvan.
Cllr O’Riordan is particularly concerned with retail and has suggested on previous occasions that Dungarvan does not get the same support from the Council as Waterford City.
“My idea was that there would be a direct effort in each town, rather than a homogeneous effort across each county,” explained Cllr. O’Riordan.
“I was appalled to see in Dungarvan this morning signs up [for] Shop Waterford. The impression in Dungarvan is that Waterford is Waterford City, so we are advertising something that is 28 miles away from us. Then when you get to Waterford City we are one county,” he said.
“I support County Waterford, I just found it a bit unsettling.”
In reply to this the Acting Director of Services Claire Hartley explained that the county had a unified retail brand, it was not practical to have a brand for every multiple towns.
“We are 12 years into the ‘One City One County One Waterford’ and six years into the brand ‘Shop Local Shop Waterford’,” said Director Hartley.
“We are the City and County of Waterford and the retail brand is Shop Waterford. That has been worked through with retailers in Dungarvan.
“We are in the position where we have two chambers of commerce [in County Waterford and Waterford City] but we have worked with the chambers of commerce so that it is a Shop Waterford brand,” she said.
“We can't have two – ‘Shop Dungarvan’ and ‘Shop Waterford’, because then we’d have a number of town brands. Waterford is the unified brand that we have adopted,” Ms. Hartley added.
AARON KENT
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
