The smart refuse bins of Oldcastle would almost talk to you – that was the drift of advice given by a county council official to a delegation from the Oldcastle Development Association and local councillors at a recent meeting of Kells Municipal District. The bins sends a text message to the council when they’re almost full and ready to be emptied. There may be a reduction in the emptying rate if they’re not quite full and that’s in line with the council’s carbon policy and decarbonisation.
Area engineer Matthews Rafferty said in reply to a query from development association member Sue Russell that not all the bins are “smart” but it’s moving in that direction. One development – the dumping of household refuse in street bins – is not approved by the council and neither is the dumping of refuse at the bring bank. The litter warden is very active on this and fines have been issued.
Ominously, officials said that there were problems with the dumping of needles and drug paraphernalia. Questions were asked about the frequency of town cleaning and councillors were told that the sweeper cleans entire towns quarterly. However, the sweeper comes more often to Oldcastle because of concrete spills there. If the local quarry is responsible for the spill it will “normally put up its hands” and pay for the clean- up. However, on one recent Friday a spill occurred and no one admitted the offence. The council had to pay for that itself and that comes out of the MD funding.
Public Realm Development Plan For Oldcastle
When the issue of a public realm development plan for Oldcastle came up for discussion, Cllr Peter Caffrey, pictured above, said that a previous attempt to establish a public realm plan met with an objection and the plan was delayed for a couple of years. Hopefully, this latest attempt would succeed, he said. In reply to a question from Sinn Fein Cllr Michael Gallagher as to who owned the local Gilson school, Ms Russell said it was owned by the people of Oldcastle and managed by a trust. The trust also manages the former teachers’ houses and playing fields to the rear.
Fine Gael Cllr Sarah Reilly said that plans for rejuvenation of the town put forward by the development association would have a large price tag attached and she thought the association had the right idea in breaking the ideas down into individual sections. Ms Russell said that an awful lot of preparatory work, including architect’s drawings and public consultation, had taken place. “It’s ready to rock. It just needs the money to go forward”.
MD Cathaoirleach Cllr Sean Drew said it would be no harm for the group to pass on material on their projects to the councillors to keep them up to date with developments. It said it would be of great benefit to the association to have the councillors fully informed. Fianna Fail Cllr Mike Bray and Independent Cllr David Gilroy offered to help the group with aspects of their projects.
