Two sites repeatedly bringing Wexford down in litter rankings – ‘It wasn't just littered, but dumped upon'
While the town can be happy enough with a rank of 17th of 40 towns surveyed and a status of 'clean to European norms', it would have figured much higher in the rankings were it not for two repeat offenders – the Rope Walk car park and the bring facility in Tesco car park.
Every year, the adjudicators single out these locations, but it appears that there's little appetite for those in charge of the sites to do anything about it.
"These two sites have been consistently heavily littered, bringing down the overall ranking for the town. The Rope Walk car park remains heavily littered and the Bring Facility at Tesco was not just littered, but dumped upon.'
Handing out a 'Grade C' to The Rope Walk car park, the adjudicators stated: 'There has been little change to the litter status over the last number of IBAL visits with litter seemingly a low priority for those running/managing this car park.
"The main car park surface area was generally fine, but the perimeter harboured heavy levels of a wide variety of food and alcohol related items, along with some bedding. Broken glass was also a feature at the vehicular entrance and there was graffiti on a wide variety of surfaces.'
There was even more frustration for the adjudicators reserved for the bottle banks, recycling facilities and clothes banks at Tesco, which earned a 'Grade D+'.
"The front of the bottle / can units presented with bin units in good order and signage fresh and clean. However, a duvet was hanging out of one of the clothing units with substantial bedding material on the ground beneath,' the report stated.
"The area to the side and rear of the units had suffered from significant dumping of bags of rubbish and miscellaneous items.'
Frustratingly, every other site inspected by the adjudicators received a 'Grade A' – The Rocks Heritage Trail, The Quay, approach roads, North Main Street, Selskar College and Wexford Arts Centre – drawing some very complimentary remarks in the process.
However, the same two sites have resulted in the town's overall ranking being dragged down.
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Having won awards for her work as Chairperson of Wexford Tidy Towns, Phil Murphy was extremely frustrated by the report.
"I'm sick to the back teeth of those sites,' she said. 'It's actually quite upsetting now to be honest with you. We (Tidy Towns) are out there twice a week and we do little litter picks ourselves too. Every now and again, we'll go into those sites and tidy them up, but we shouldn't really have to because they're privately owned.
"You could find anything dumped in The Rope Walk car park. Bags of rubbish, sofas, anything.
"It's really frustrating because we work so hard. We have a dedicated team of around 15 or 20 that are out every single week tidying up. Wexford used to always be up near the top of these surveys and these sites are the only reason we're not now.'
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