Limerick is a city that takes particular pride in having Ireland’s largest collection of Georgian architecture outside Dublin, yet it fails to protect its architectural heritage. For instance, this group of mid-19th-century (c. 1845) Georgian-type terraced townhouses at Nos. 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, and 64 Clare Street, Limerick City, along with the terraced townhouses on Baker Place, are not on Limerick City’s Record of Protected Structures. Below is a webpage I built to guide people through the steps for adding a building to the Record of Protected Structures: How to Write to Your Local Authority. derelictsites.com/Adding-a-B… #Limerick #Ireland #Heritage #HeritageAtRisk #HousingCrisis #DerelictIreland

Vacant since 2015? Limerick City, like the rest of the country, is full of vacant commercial buildings. But one poor planning decision in 2009 by Limerick County Council, allowing the expansion of the Crescent Shopping Centre in Dooradoyle, just outside the old city boundary, has been a major factor in Limerick City’s high commercial vacancy rate. It is a clear example of the doughnut effect: the city is hollowed out as retail shifts to out-of-town shopping centres. Now, it’s great to see the former bakery/Permanent TSB bank, a protected structure built c. 1890 at 24 Sarsfield Street, vacant since 2015, finally (fingers crossed) it looks like it's set to be converted into nine apartments and a ground-floor shop. But it will have taken eleven years and two planning applications to do what the state says is its highest priority, and at no point in that decade was any public body empowered to ask the owner a single question about it. The Derelict Sites Act 1990 wouldn’t apply here because its trigger is dereliction, i.e. ruinous, neglected, unsightly, or objectionable in appearance and not vacancy. A structurally sound building with an intact shopfront fails that test, regardless of how long it remains empty. In my view, that needs to change: vacancy should be a trigger under the Derelict Sites Act 1990, alongside abolishing the practice of councils offering substantial relief on commercial rates when a building is vacant. They need to make emptiness cost money. Abolish or sharply taper commercial rates vacancy relief after 12–24 months. When a viable building can sit empty for eleven years in the middle of a housing crisis, with no cost to the owner and no question from the state, the problem isn't the building. It's the rules. In my visualisation, the red blocks represent derelict and vacant properties in Limerick City. Below is a webpage I built to highlight dereliction in Ireland, propose solutions, and showcase heritage buildings and structures at risk. The page includes quick facts, a summary, history and ownership, a dated photographic decline log, planning/enforcement history, vacancy/dereliction signals, reuse potential, recommended next actions, open questions, and sources. ℹ️Research Page: derelictsites.com/3464-24-Sa… #Limerick #Ireland #Heritage #HeritageAtRisk #HousingCrisis #DerelictIreland

Can you tell me why these Georgian buildings on Clare Street aren't on the protected structures register? @LimerickCouncil @moranjohna1 @GeorgianGroup @LmkCivicTrust #Limerick #Heritage #HeritageAtRisk