Five Tidy Town Committees were honoured at a special event in the County House in Lifford on Tuesday afternoon when they were awarded the first Clean & Green Awards from Donegal County Council.
These awards are aimed at recognising groups that have achieved high scores in the following three categories of the National Tidy Towns competition: Tidiness & Litter Control; Approach Roads, Streets and Lanes and; Sustainable Waste & Resource Management.
The following groups received an award of €500 as they came out tops in these categories in the national competition for their own municipal district – Doochary, Donegal Town, Carraig Airt, Castlefinn and Malin and Malin also received the overall county award worth €1,000.
Speaking at the presentation of these awards Cathaoirleach Cllr. Gerry McMonagle congratulated the groups on the great work that they do in their own towns and villages.
“The work that you do is a credit to each and every one of you and to the other volunteers in your community. You are making a massive contribution to your communities and you are keeping Donegal cleaner, greener and much more environmentally aware. I think we are winning the battle and I would urge you all to keep up the good work – the future is green.”
Cllr Jack Murray, Chair of the Environmental and Emergency Services Strategic Policy Committee also congratulated the groups and said that €68,000 had been invested in Tidy Towns initiatives by the Council in 2017. This included €250 to 12 new Tidy Town committees to support them at their start up stage, while 28 groups benefitted from a total fund of €65,000 which helped them improve their overall marks in the national competition. He acknowledged that the return on this investment for the Council is massive when you consider the work done by the committees on a voluntary basis across Donegal.
Michael McGarvey, Director of Water and Environment with the Council also commended the groups on receiving these awards and noted that there are more than 5,000 volunteers working through Tidy Town Committees and community clean-ups across Donegal and this is something that is particularly unique to Donegal. He added that the Council is fully committed to continuing to work with groups and explore all possible options for addressing ongoing challenges particularly litter along the roadside.
He said “the Tidy Towns initiative has such a positive impact on the local community and we are keen to support groups that instil such positivity in their local community and their local environment.”
These Tidy Town initiatives will continue in 2018 and applications for the Tidy Towns Start Up Fund and Improvement Fund will be open in the coming weeks.
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