Saturday, August 15, 2009

Rainproof Streets at the Belfast Tallships







Just back from a short visit on behalf of the City to Belfast who are playing host to the finish of this years Trans Atlantic Tallships Festival.
As you know, Waterford will be once again hosting the start of the race from June 30th to July 3rd in 2011 and the Mayor, John Halligan, Olivia O'Reilly the City Council Tallships Co-ordinator and I spent two days in Belfast meeting and networking with the Ports, Sail Training International and the Ships Masters and organisations of behalf of the event in 2011 continuing the good work being done to ensure a large fleet returns here for that weekend.
It was a bonus that my husband Liam, who Captains the sailing brig Stavros S Niarchos, was also at the festival. (Pictured above with the Mayor on board.)

Anyway, while in Belfast I took the opportunity to visit the city centre and was surprised and delighted to see that Belfast, in a huge programme of pedestrianisation and street improvement is making large tracts of their city centre weatherproof. As you can see in the photograph above it entails a light covering extending from the shop fronts a few metres out over the street and indeed further in towards back you can see a brand new shopping centre (very nice) which has been designed to mimic a street scape and feel.

This is the type of weatherproofing that I think would work well in Waterford City and it's nice to see it in action - even if I did have to get out into the rain to the the pics!

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