Community Involvement & Planning
Thank you for the filled up entry form, map and plan. I note you have 18 committee members and you are holding plenty committee meetings. You are well supported by the agencies, bodies and businesses that are listed on your submission. The local people are well informed on your activities. It is positive to have a school liaison officer and we wish the school well in the Green Flag initiative. It is pleasing to find that you have some young members recently joined up. Over the past 13 years your participation in the TidyTowns competition has generated a good community spirit. This is a good approach to the competition – well done.
Built Environment and Streetscape
This is lovely well kept village and I was most impressed to see the discreet street signage. The Marian Hall is splendid and adorned with colourful flowers and I admired the signage on it. Many nice shops are admires such as Nolans, Stacks selling prime beef and Enrights is a beauty. Around the village there are some other splendid shops that are brightly painted but too many to mention. The church and school are splendid and it could be nice to have a name on the Community Sports Centre. Newtownsandes Creamery stands out as a very orderly and well kept place, and it was noticeable that their outbuildings are very well maintained. I liked the mural of the Gaelic footballers. The memorial plaques to Philip Cunningham are interesting at the church and down at the entrance to the Limekiln I read about the ancestral home of JohnMoore father of Thomas Moore 1779-1852, Ireland’s national poet. It is splendid to see the Limekiln so well presented accessed by the lovely pathway and footbridge and here we are reminded of the lime that was produced to build most of the structures in the area – a great historical feature. Estuary Garage is a bit unfortunate looking and we sympathise with the owner, but we note you are following up on this.
Landscaping and Open Spaces
I liked the ICA garden 2010 containing the bog oak on the Glin road. Landscaping is impressive outside the GAA grounds. The entrances to the wooded areas are refreshingly presented with all the splendid new and mature trees. We admire nice planted areas and then there are the containers and tubs of flowers that give colour and freshness to the surroundings. Good trees and strips of grass adorn the large car park. In many areas we admire good sturdy stone walls.
Wildlife and Natural Amenities
Your attention to this important category is applauded and I was delighted to take a stroll in the nature trail with the lovely footpath linking the two roads. I admired the well presented notice boards. The young and mature trees are splendid. The timber railings were in great shape on my visit. There was pleasant singing of the birds in the nature trail and down at the Limekiln, and I was impressed at the quality of the water in the river which I saw in a few places and these waters are certainly not polluted. A fallen limb of an ash tree reminds us of the recent storm. I admire the “Respect the country code”.
Sustainable Waste And Resource Management
You have worked well in this category with the initiatives that are outlined, and in my view the most important item listed is the efforts to get the green flag programmes going in the school. We found in some other locations that the school teachers were unable to give the time necessary to organise the programmes and the TidyTowns committees put forward persons to help out from the villages and this worked out well for all concerned. I read that composting bins are now supplied. Composting is the way forward and you could further educate the people on how best to do this, by for instance, holding a workshop that demonstrates that to achieve the best results we must mix green kitchen waste with brown waste like hedge clippings, and also by turning it occasionally; more information is available on this from the county council. Compost reduces the amount of waste going to landfill, and produces good material for the vegetable and flower gardens, plus it cuts down on spending money on such like material.
Tidiness and Litter Control
This is a tidy village and interesting to find that the dustbins had to be removed, as you state, to prevent inappropriate dumping of household waste. We are interested to find out if this is working for you? The village looks the better for the work that is done in the litter clean ups. It is positive that people including the youth club members adopt a particular road and work there. Weed control was very good and you had a bit of the national problem of cigarette ends on the footpaths. It is good practice to segregate the waste after doing the collection of the litter.
Residential Areas
There are very nice town houses around the village and a great pride of place is shown by the tidy way they keep their homes that are brightly painted. You are fortunate to have this outstanding new children’s playground that has been created to a very high standard, and the tarmac parking area adds to the splendour of the place. I visited Bruach na Gaeil and it has nice houses and young trees but the grass had gone long and was in need of attention.
Roads, Streets and Back Areas
We are greeted on the outskirts by lovely bilingual road signage. There are many great footpaths in the village and the one going into the town on the Glin road is a good example of this, and then there is the one in off the road going down to their entrance to Limekiln. There are a few spots of uneven surfaces like going out past the Marian Hall. We admired a nice stone bridge down on the Knockanure road.
