Ballymun mass housing and regeneration

Hi I read your article, and although it is well written I have to disagree strongly with how you ended it.

Ballymun was indeed a strong community at one point, but now it is in ruin. Yes it has been given the AXIS centre, the health centre and the fitness centre, but so many things were promised and not delivered. As of today we have no shopping centre, there is one big shop that must provide for thousands of people, the metro link that yes would have been great, was cancelled, and on top of that our bus services cut so getting into the city center is a 40 (on a good day with no traffic) commute and many still face a further 10 or more min walk from their nearest bus stop to their homes, which many of our older residents are unable to do if they are weighed down with shopping.

There are very few clubs anymore, all of the youth clubs that Ballymun had in abundance before that regeneration lost funding or premises and were forced to close, and it wasn't only the youth clubs but also many of the adult ones including our well womens centre, even our public health nurses have felt the effect with the closure of the ready-steady-grow programme.

The houses were thrown together and have had many problems over the years that the corporation are slow to deal with. On top of all that the community spirit of Ballymun has been broken, friends and family moved away from each other, which has only gotten worse with that fact that the council will not house a young person from Ballymun within Ballymun when they are of age, little help is given even if the young person is renting privately. There is no meeting places anymore (as the shopping centre use to serve as a meeting point) which is again hurting the locals who would rely on those places to meet friends and swap news.

I grew up in Ballymun and I still live there, I still love the area but it is no where close to the Ballymun I grew up in. I can see the difference in how my own children experience the area, there is barely anything here for them to do and if it wasn't for the few residents that hold onto the community for dear life and organise events or outings etc. my children would barely know anyone outside of our road as even the parks are to dangerous to play in.

I do not intend for this to be an attack on your article but I just wanted to shed some light on the real Ballymun.

Nikki

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