Talk:Blanchardstown Centre

Largest

Hi. The marketing bumf ("buy/rent retail space from us") on the website of the Blanchardstown company makes the claim that it is "Ireland’s largest retail and leisure development". However, no supporting information is offered for this. Nor is it clear what they mean by "largest" (Acreage? Number of shops? Number of customers? Sales revenue (for shops)? Rental revenue (for the developers)?). Or what the addition of the "... and leisure development" qualifier is doing there (is it intended to bring satellite offices, retail parks or hotels into scope?). To my understanding Dundrum Town Centre also claims to be Ireland's "largest retail development" (and on "acreage", "number of shops" and rental income would seem to meet that claim[1][2]). So what do we do here? Primary sources are notoriously unreliable. We have a policy about avoiding unqualified primary sources. Personally I would just remove the claim. Unless we can qualify or quantify what this claim actually covers.... Guliolopez (talk) 13:04, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

OK - I haven't heard back on this, so I'm removing the "largest" claim. As it is unclear and relies on a potentially problematic primary source. Guliolopez (talk) 09:55, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Reopened

OK. So it seems that this thread is not closed. At least one anon has restored text asserting that Blanch is the "largest shopping centre in Ireland". However, no cites are offered in support of this. As noted prior and above, other sites (including Dundrum) make the same claim. And, unless the claim for Blanch is qualified somehow (most stores? largest floorspace? highest income? some other "biggest" qualifier), we shouldn't be stating "largest" without a qualifier. And a reliable secondary source noting that qualifier and supporting the claim. As noted previously, several secondary sources (which are otherwise seemingly reliable) suggest that Dundrum is the largest. And unless there are (perhaps newer?) cites supporting a claim that Blanch is "the biggest", I see no reason to ignore these sources. (For example, Irish Times (Dec 2014) "Dundrum Town Centre {..} is by far the largest and most valuable in the country with almost 140,000sq m (1.5m sq ft) of retail space {..and..} a reported rental income of €55 million", The Journal (Sep 2015) "Ireland’s largest shopping centre {Dundrum} has just been sold as part of biggest Nama deal ever", The Guardian (Jul 2016) "Hammerson has paid £1bn to take control of Dundrum Town Centre, Ireland's biggest shopping centre", etc.) Happy to hear other editors' evidence-based thoughts on the matter. If any. Guliolopez (talk) 18:33, 29 April 2017 (UTC)