AROUND 70 members of the public gathered in the Ashe Hotel on Monday night to give their thoughts as part of open forum about how to make the shopping experience in Tralee a better one.

The event, led by retail members of Tralee Chamber Alliance and the Institute of Technology Tralee, will focus on identifying the needs and wants of shoppers with a view to positioning Tralee as the retail capital of the southwest.

“We want the shopping experience in Tralee to be so good that it becomes a must-visit while people are in Kerry,” said Kieran Ruttledge of Tralee Chamber Alliance.

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“We want it that, anyone visiting Kerry, be it Kenmare, Dingle or Killarney, that if they want to go shopping, they must come to Tralee,” he added.

The forum was chaired by Manager of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development in IT Tralee, Breda O’Dwyer.

With the information gathered, Tralee Chamber Alliance, will bring it back to retailers to show them what the customers think.

The scheduled topics up for debate were…

• Is Tralee shopping user-friendly?
• Tralee shoppers’ needs and wants?
• Motivation to shop, or not to shop in Tralee?
• Traffic and parking in Tralee

With every topic, each table appointed a spokesperson and were given time to discuss and put forward issues that were of importance to them.

Some of the issues that cropped up were parking, more signage for shops, seating both inside and outside shops, positioning of taxi ranks, wheelchair access, vacant shops becoming eye-soars, shops being cluttered and more public toilets and changing facilities in the town centre.

There was also a broad consensus that Tralee needed to follow Killarney’s lead with regards the presentation of the town centre. The suggestions being, more hanging baskets around the town and for the streets to be regularly power-washed clean.

There was a suggestion that not enough was being done to draw people in with festivals, that the Square should be a focal point with markets and events throughout the year.

To freshen up the look of the Mall, it was put forward that the taxi rank should be moved to the back of Milk Market lane because the taxis can become a bit of an eyesore.

One of the questions put forward was, is the Town Park an incentive to attract shoppers to Tralee?

There was contrasting views on this point. A couple of people felt that the park was dangerous at times to bring children.

A mother, who spends time in Tralee off and on and visits the park regularly, held an opposite opinion on this. She felt that the park, which she visits almost everyday with her baby, was beautiful and she no issues regards its safety.

When the parking issue was raised, the notion of free parking for an hour was a view that was held in the room.

After the meeting, organisers said that overall it was a very positive discussion with a real appetite for making Tralee the shopping capital in the southwest.

The event was just one aspect of the initiative. Retail managers and owners will also be interviewed along with footfall data being collected.

The study is expected to be concluded by the end of the week with the findings presented at a Tralee Chamber Alliance meeting next Monday.