No cutbacks in Town
Council’s litter control budget
by Damian Dowds, Inishowen
Independent
BUNCRANA Town Council has hit back at the
publication of the Irish Business Against Litter
survey that described the town as “moderately
littered,” and placed Buncrana 45th of 60 areas
surveyed.
The survey, carried out on behalf of IBAL by An
Taisce on the June bank holiday weekend, said that
while half of the sites surveyed in Buncrana got the
top grade and were in excellent condition, heavy
littering at Lisfannon beach and Ludden picnic area
reduced its overall score.
Town engineer Donal Walker took exception to the
suggestion made by the IBAL that budgetary cutbacks
have led to a reduction in weekend cleaning.
“Buncrana Town Council has not alone maintained its
2008 funding for litter control, we have actually
increased our spend by supporting the Tidy Towns
committee,” he said. The council disposes of rubbish
collected by the committee.
The IBAL report identified “very deliberate
discarding of rubbish, eg tied plastic bags” at
Lisfannon and Ludden. The project manager for the
Tidy Town committee said that the tied plastic bags
had been left there by volunteers following their
clean up on the Saturday of the bank holiday
weekend. “We lifted 144 bags of rubbish from the
golf links down to the Harbour Bar and left them for
collection. That we’d now be criticised for that is
hard to take.”
Cllr Rena Donaghy, chairperson of the Buncrana Tidy
Towns committee, said the group was very
disappointed with the report. “We’ve fought a very
long and hard battle to get a Blue Flag for
Lisfannon beach, surely it’s not too much to ask
people using the beach to take their litter home,”
Cllr Donaghy said. “That this survey would be
carried out on a beach on the first weekend of the
year that we got a glimpse of the sun was
unfortunate.”
“The result of the Tidy Town competition, which will
be revealed in September and takes in a number of
categories, will give a more accurate picture of the
work that has been done in the town,” Cllr Donaghy
said. Adjudicators will be in Buncrana later this
month and will return in July.
*Anyone wanting to volunteer an hour to the Tidy
Town effort should go along to the Shore Front Car
Park at 7pm on Wednesday evenings or 11am on
Saturday mornings. |
