Tidy Towns Groups concerned about access to funding

TIDY Town groups have expressed concerns about access to funding and one believes it is “inevitable” they will lose points in the national competition over graffiti, reports Maurice Garvey.

At the monthly council meeting on Monday, Cllr Francis Timmons (Ind) said he spoke with a local tidy town committee that morning who raised concerns about “accessing tidy town funding”.

“I’d ask the manager can he address this. One tidy towns for example said that they got no funding but got no explanation as to why they didn’t get the funding. A second issue is tidy town judges are out and volunteers are out there several times a week, but the graffiti issues is just a blight on our community,” said Cllr Timmons.

“The council isn’t responsible for putting the graffiti there but seems to be pretty slow in removing it. Also the changeover in tidy towns going from community to environment doesn’t seem to have gone as smoothly, so I’d suggest SDCC meet with the groups as we don’t want to lose out on this huge commitment.”

Cllr Eoin Ó Broin (SocDems) said Clondalkin Tidy Towns told him “it is inevitable they are going to lose points this year because of the graffiti”.

“Also the building [council area offices] in Clondalkin doesn’t get the same T&C as this building here [Tallaght]. There can be weeds, unpainted parts of the façade, so that needs a bit of attention.

“It would be good if there was regular meetings between public realm staff and tidy towns to coordinate work,” said Cllr Ó Broin.

Responding to this at the meeting, acting council chief executive Colm Ward said the tidy towns was “bedding in a new section in environment” and there are probably some “teething issues” following the move from years at the community section.

“The resources are in place to deal with graffiti through the probation services as has been the situation for years. We have had some vacancies in the staff processing that work so that maybe is leading to some issues but I know that the team in environment are trying to particularly prioritise areas for tidy towns in the coming weeks because they are very conscious of that,” said Mr Ward.

Mr Ward said meetings are “ongoing” with tidy towns groups and they will have an opportunity to deal directly with staff on any issues.

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