Arcadia

Challenges and Opportunities

There are a number of challenges and indeed opportunities that face Arcadia. This is most helpfully portrayed in a SCOT (Strengths, Challenges, Opportunities, Threats) Analysis:

Strengths: Arcadia clearly has a willingness to change as outlined by the fact they are running this competition in the first place. They are also in a fantastic position to help the local community and Athlones sustainability more broadly with a large retail park and retail partners that rake in hundreds of thousands of euro a year.
Challenges: Real substantial changes require real substantive investments which is understandably not a feat easily achieved for example EV Charging Points come at a substantial cost especially higher quality ones. On top of this consumer behavior is hard to change and if its more convenient for the consumer they will simply go elsewhere that is not trying to change their behavior to be more sustainable.
Opportunities: There are a number of valuable opportunities open to Arcadia with good transport links, a large amount of space as mentioned previously and a thriving local community and by 2050 Arcadia could well be the centre of sustainability in not just Athlone but the midlands region.
Threats: There are a number of threats to this vision however as mentioned previously some consumers may not want to change their habits and the task becomes many times more difficult when people are not willing to engage. On top of this with private industry more volatile than ever it is a possibility that Arcadia may not exist in 2050 and their vision may never be realised.

Overall however it seems Arcadia has a bright future ahead with many opportunities that they can and should take advantage of.

What will Arcadia look like in 2050?

Arcadia Retail Park is a central part of the economy of Athlone and will play a pivotal role in the sustainability of Athlone as we edge ever closer to 2050. Arcadia Retail Park has a number of businesses so therefore we believe that Arcadia will have to change according to the changes that occur in our town. Some will be small and some will be big. But all of them should lead to a more environmentally-friendly Arcadia Retail Park, which should hopefully lead to a better Athlone. There are several things we believe will inevitably happen in Arcadia even if the management of the park take no steps to do so including:

Expansion in the number of Electric Vehicle Charging Points to accommodate growing demand for Electric Vehicles.
Increase in the number of bins around the park as organisations like the council continue to work to bring Athlone from an average town when it comes to litter into a litter free town.
Continued reduction in the amount of waste produced by businesses based in Arcadia for example through the full phasing out of paper receipts.

What can the owners of Arcadia do?

If we are just a tad more ambitious than just the basics there is a whole host of areas the owners of Arcadia Retail Park could tackle. As a prominent retail destination in Athlone it is vital that Arcadia not only takes the basic steps but the ambitious ones in the next 5-10 years. This includes:

Incentivise other forms of transport! Give incentives to those who travel to Arcadia using public transport or methods other than by car.
Use empty building space. There are so many possibilities for currently unoccupied Arcadia plots for example making Arcadia a hub for the local community, opening up space for exhibitions on environmental issues, even allowing groups to use that space. So much can be done to uplift the community and a happy community will be more willing to make lifestyle changes.
Ramping up the number of EV Charging Points past accommodating for just current demand as research suggests we need the infrastructure available before demand will grow.

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