The Irish Times

Limerick City Council's new strategy for the city centre represents a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to reverse the decline of its Georgian core, Newtown Pery, according to the Irish Georgian Society (IGS). In its submission on the draft strategy, the society said the main purpose of a conference it organised last May was to address the continued neglect of Newtown Pery in light of the continuing and largely successful regeneration of Limerick's riverside. The IGS noted that Newtown Pery - Ireland's largest Georgian area outside Dublin - had been laid out in the 1760s on a grid plan by the Italian architect Davis Ducart and had reached the pinnacle of its social and commercial success in the mid-19th century. But decline and neglect had "left its elegant houses and streetscapes marred by over a century of ill-considered and poorly executed works: subdivided houses, PVC windows, dangling overhead wirescapes and rusted and buckling boundary railings". As Newtown Pery's Georgian buildings and streetscapes "comprise one of Limerick's major and most defining assets", the IGS called on the city council to give priority to the development of a regeneration strategy based on successful European models.