By Youghal Town Cllr. Barbara Murray MCC

Youghal Town Cllr. and Member Of Cork County Council Barbara Murray

A new advertising campaign will commence in June to advertise the affordable housing that will be coming on stream in the county. The system has been changed to allow applicants to choose from a defined area, which will include a number of areas that have available affordable housing, a good example would be that Youghal would be area 11 and would also include places like Killeagh, Castlemartyr, Mogeely etc so these options may be explored by the applicants if their first choice is not available. Intending applicants should also check with their mortgage provider as to how much they can be sanctioned for a mortgage.

Recreation and Amenity grant forms are now available, adverts will appear in local papers. Closing date for receipt of applications is as follows: Community Grant scheme – Nov 28th 2008, Recreation Grant Scheme – 26th May 2008, Amenity Grant Scheme – 26th Sept., 2008.

Southern Division meeting was held on April 21st where Cllr. Barbara Murray posed the question of Cork County Council providing a glass recycling facility for their customers, the response was favourable in that at present the council are looking at the provision of this service. Will update when there is progress on this. Unfortunately due to the abuse of the McCurtainstown carpark recycling facilities these have now been discontinued. In order to meet criteria for blue flag beach these facilities will be provided complete with CCTV at the area near the Railway Station from June to Sept. Cllr Murray brought a motion forward at the last meeting of Youghal Town Council, calling on the council to allow these facilities to be made permanent subject to there being no misuse of the facility. The response from management was not in favour of making recycling facility permanent at that time, but this issue will be pursued again once facility is up and running.

Struhan na Sali – Works to improve the gradient of the green area will commence next week. Trial holes were dug in the last few weeks in grass area to determine what was under the surface, fortunately the ground is workable and our engineer has suggested that a tiered green area would work pretty well. The intention would be to widen the road and provide approx 8 more car parking spaces.

Litter Picking on N25 is posing problems and is proving to be a costly operation for Cork County Council. The funding that is provided to date by the NRA is unlikely to cover the costs that will now be incurred by CCC to meet the new traffic management guidelines. Apparently one of the carriageways should be closed in order to do works on N25. Early next month the 1st visit to the N25 will cover picking of litter and grass cutting. The 2nd visit will be to spray for ragworth, this should be done more than once in the year, but at present once is all that funding will provide for.

On Friday 18th April Cork County Council launched this years litter challenge, judging will commence on April 24th so all Tidy towns groups and community councils are already active in making sure that their area is looking its best, with the support of each local authority.

“Youghal Town” Photo: Michael Hussey (YoughalOnline.com)

Youghal Landfill Site, problems are still ongoing in relation to foul odour coming from the landfill. It would seem that quite a few additional measures have being taken to alleviate the smell and to date we still have a problem. At the Southern Committee meeting this issue was again aired and it was outlined that consultants have been appointed to advise on new strategy in gas management system. By August of ‘08 it is quite possible that Cork County Council will only be taking their own waste and that other operators will have to find an alternative landfill site in which to dispose of their refuse. Bottle Hill will have to have an improved access before it becomes operational, and all waste must be treated and baled to be accepted, as such at the moment there is no progress in terms of an MRF plant which will have to be in place before Bottle Hill becomes operational.

Provision of Additional Car parking at Kilcoran Place, Jack McCarthy, senior engineer has applied for funding for the provision of parking and overlay from Development Contribution scheme 2008.

Claycastle Car Park, new litter bins will be provided in addition to Dog Poop bins for this area.

Redbarn Car parking facilities, Cork County Council will use own lands to provide parking in Redbarn for Summer season. Parking over the years has been a huge problem in this area and there has always being the fear that should an emergency service need to get to Redbarn it would be with great difficulty.

Initially these parking facilities will be temporary in terms of surfacing and marking out. The existing toilet facility while not totally satisfactory in terms of where it is located, will be improved and by 2009 will be relocated and replaced with a modern facility. The intention from the onset was to provide parking for the hundreds of people that visit Redbarn when weather is fine and by doing this we would also be meeting part of the criteria for Blue Flag, the water quality has always been good so hopefully by 2009 Redbarn should be well on the way to achieving Blue Flag status.