The following article appeared in the Letterkenny Leader on April 7th
At our recent AGM, plans for Letterkenny Tidy Towns initiatives for 2022 were discussed. This month’s column will go over some of the highlights.
Murals
We have 3 Flight of the Bee Murals at Lower Main Street, at the Jim McCormick Memorial Garden and at the old ESB site on Port Road. These were done by Karl Porter of UV Arts. Due largely to Covid restrictions, there was a delay in completing the remaining 2 murals at the Quiet Moment and at Insomnia, however Ciaran Dunlevy has been commissioned to complete the last 2 murals. Judging by his work at Church Lane, these two final pieces should be perfect to complete the mural trail!
In conjunction with the murals, we are working on an app which will guide visitors around the trail, and would hopefully take in other trails around the town. It’s in early stages of development, but could be a real asset to the town’s tourist industry once it’s up and running.
Keeping the Town Clean and Tidy
A core part of our remit is to keep the town looking clean and tidy, and this year as usual we will have a number of schemes in place to help achieve this.
Firstly, as per usual we will have our Sunday litter picks, where a group of volunteers meets up at Market Square at 10.30 on Sundays, and Neil, our coordinator, keeps everyone stocked with gloves, bags, high vis jackets and litter grabbers. All are welcome, and you can just turn up and join us any time. A warm welcome is assured!
The Paint the Town initiative will continue, where we provide assistance to businesses to design colour schemes and spruce up the outside of their premises.
The Spring Clean week and the Clean Sweep initiative are to be launched in April.
The Clean Sweep is an initiative where we encourage business owners to look after their own area
The Spring Clean Week is a national campaign, organised by An Taisce, in which residents who sign up to organise a spring clean of their local area, whether it be an estate or a local road, are provided with advice and equipment. Last year , volunteers collected an estimated 2800 tonnes of litter. If your community would like to join in, you can register at http://nationalspringclean.org.
Cleaner Community Campaign is to be launched in April with all the competitions attached to it. This is our annual competition, with such categories as ‘Best small/large/wildlife friendly garden’, ‘Best kept estate’, ‘Best kept shop front’ and so on. This leads to our awards night in the autumn. We are hopeful that this year the awards night will be in person, as we have missed meeting and thanking our volunteers in person the last couple of years, thanks to Covid.
Pipeline Projects
There are also a couple of schemes in the pipeline, which still have to be worked out. More details will follow. These include a Sustainability Survey and a possible Streets and derelict buildings seminar with Church Lane.
In Addition to these initiatives, we have a number of plans based around improving biodiversity, and I’ll cover those in a future column.
