Tidy Town Committees sweep up Clean & Green Awards

Five Tidy Town Committees were honoured at a special event in the County House in Lifford on Monday afternoon when they were awarded the 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; Sustainability – doing more with less.

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 Donegal Town also received the overall county award worth €1,000.

Speaking at the presentation of these awards Cathaoirleach Cllr. Seamus O’Domhnaill 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 Niamh Kennedy, Deputy Chair of the Environmental and Emergency Services Strategic Policy Committee also congratulated the groups and said that €67,000 had been invested in Tidy Towns initiatives by the Council in 2018. 28 groups benefitted from the fund which helped them improve their overall marks in the national competition.

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.

The Council has just recently launched the Big Donegal Clean-Up campaign and groups have already been very active. This year we also have 5 local Big Donegal Clean-up Ambassadors who will help promote the campaign and encourage others to get involved. 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.

Mr McGarvey 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”.

 

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