Castlebar Chamber happy

HAPPY Cllr Eugene McCormack, Mayor of Castlebar, with fellow Cllrs Blackie Gavin and Brendan Henaghan, Acting Town Clerk, Nora Coyne, and some eager shoppers prior to the switching on of Castlebar’s Christmas lights. The Mayor is generally happy with Christmas trade in the town.

Castlebar Chamber happy with Christmas shopping

Anton McNulty

DESPITE concerns regarding a downturn in the economy in 2008, sales in Castlebar over the Christmas season were on par with last year, according to the local Chamber of Commerce.
There were concerns before Christmas that the spending spree which the town’s retailers enjoyed in recent years would be reduced because of fears over the future of the economy. However, despite claims that the town was not as busy as usual in the run-up to Christmas, Sinead Kelleher of Castlebar Chamber of Commerce told The Mayo News that retailers she was talking to were happy with the sales over the Christmas.
She said the town was ‘buzzing’ before Christmas and was also very busy for the post-Christmas sales. A number of new premises, including Next, Homebase and Harvey Norman, opened in Castlebar in the run-up to Christmas and Sinead believes that these premises brought a lot of people into the town and benefited all businesses.
“We are definitely happy with the amount of people who came into Castlebar for the Christmas and hopefully everyone benefited. From talking to people in other towns around the country, they say it was a lot quieter and it could be something to do with talk about the economy. Castlebar was as busy as last year and the new shops definitely brought more people into the town who would otherwise have gone to Galway.
“Some people said the town was not as busy but, sales wise, it was busy and hopefully it will continue that way into the New Year. There was a good buzz around Main Street and I think people were happy with business. We are grateful to all our customers for their support and I think they appreciate our service,” she said.
Cllr Eugene McCormack, Mayor of Castlebar, said he was happy with the number of people coming into Castlebar to do their Christmas shopping, despite the slow start. He admitted that there did not seem to be the same number of people as previous years but was encouraged by the numbers who came for the sales.
“I felt myself that it was not as busy as other years and the Christmas rush was slow to start. I sing in a choir and we were outside a shop the Sunday before Christmas and there was not the same amount of people compared to other years. However, the town was buzzing for the sales and there were lots of people around. I talked to a few people with retail businesses and they were happy enough. Judging by the way the sales were going people still had money to spend,” he said.
Cllr McCormack also complimented the Gardaí for the traffic management programme which operated at the entrance to the Dunnes Stores and Tesco car parks and said the traffic ran very smoothly.