Greystones

around Bray. It features many herbaceous perennial plants that will give colour for much of the year and most importantly will not need replanting each year thus saving BTT money and time. Also Bray features many beautiful old established private gardens – perhaps the owners can be asked to donate some cuttings and splittings of some of their perennials to BTT for planting around town – the gardeners will be happy to control their plants and BTT will be happy to receive pollinator-friendly plants for free! Your facebook page features many lovely examples of wildflowers, insects, birds and mammals around Bray. This is great to see as part of your role in BTT is to promote awareness of our environment leading to us all taking better care of it – well done. Also your assisting local schools with Biodiversity talks and events such as at Scoil Cualann is all part of this as is your work with Swifts. Swifts are a personal favourite of this adjudicator so I was delighted to hear of your Swift evening and your six new Swift boxes. Please keep future adjudicators informed of how successful these boxes are and definitely keep up your annual Swift event. Towns such as Bray with so many old buildings are habitats of huge importance to these amazing birds whose future is completely tied up with us humans and our activities and building habits. Well done to students of Presentation College who have worked to set up a wildflower meadow in part of their school grounds – this type of project is great in schools and can lead to lots more interesting projects in science, art etc. Keep up your great liaison work with BMD on reducing herbicide use – an aim of no herbicide use would be fantastic – take a look at your neighbours in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council who are actively working in public parks and areas now with no herbicide use at all. They will be only too happy to share their experiences in this pioneering work.Green Spaces and Landscaping / Spásanna Glasa agus Tírdhreachú:Nature and Biodiversity in your Locality / An Dúlra agus an Bhithéagsúlacht i do cheantar:areas but allow non-natives in more landscaped areas through the town is a good and wise one (see my note about Martello Terrace bed above)! There is an extensive list of pollinator-friendly plants useful for every sort of situation in the above-mentioned ‘Pollinator Planting Code’. This was compiled as part of the All Ireland Pollinator Plan by the National Biodiversity Data Centre and is available to download at the pollinators.ie website above. Please use this guide as your ‘ bible’ for all the planting you do around Bray. It features many herbaceous perennial plants that will give colour for much of the year and most importantly will not need replanting each year thus saving BTT money and time. Also Bray features many beautiful old established private gardens – perhaps the owners can be asked to donate some cuttings and splittings of some of their perennials to BTT for planting around town – the gardeners will be happy to control their plants and BTT will be happy to receive pollinator-friendly plants for free! Your facebook page features many lovely examples of wildflowers, insects, birds and mammals around Bray. This is great to see as part of your role in BTT is to promote awareness of our environment leading to us all taking better care of it – well done. Also your assisting local schools with Biodiversity talks and events such as at Scoil Cualann is all part of this as is your work with Swifts. Swifts are a personal favourite of this adjudicator so I was delighted to hear of your Swift evening and your six new Swift boxes. Please keep future adjudicators informed of how successful these boxes are and definitely keep up your annual Swift event. Towns such as Bray with so many old buildings are habitats of huge importance to these amazing birds whose future is completely tied up with us humans and our activities and building habits. Well done to students of Presentation College who have worked to set up a wildflower meadow in part of their school grounds – this type of project is great in schools and can lead to lots more interesting projects in science, art etc. Keep up your great liaison work with BMD on reducing herbicide use – an aim of no herbicide use would be fantastic – take a look at your neighbours in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council who are actively working in public parks and areas now with no herbicide use at all. They will be only too happy to share their experiences in this pioneering work.

Sustainability – Doing more with less You have a huge amount of information and actions listed in your application in this section and a clear understanding of the different sections involved. The establishment of the North Wicklow Environmental Network is a terrific initiative – various groups and individuals working together sharing their knowledge and experience is always a good idea. This is demonstrated in your support for the excellent Dargle Exchange project run by Commonground – a great idea on the sustainability theme applicable to many other places too so keep up your great example! Albert Walk was visited and its Edible Bray beds are a great idea situated alongside cafes and food places - we felt more publicity is needed for this deserving and interesting project – perhaps a noticeboard outlining what’s growing there and why you are doing it – there is great potential to expand this idea to other areas too. You are involved in several small garden projects growing edible plants in Bray which is always a good thing but it did strike this adjudicator that a town as big as Bray should/could have a good sized Community Garden for the public to access and use especially with Wicklow’s Garden of Ireland reputation! Perhaps this is an initiative that could be followed up into the future for Bray? You have several future projects lined up in this section including water butts use, water fountains and surveys. We look forward to the fruition of these projects in future competitions.

Bray was looking clean and tidy during the busy weekend of adjudication time. Working in such a busy town filled with both residents and visitors cannot be easy but you are doing a great job here and your Litter Management Plan has clearly helped. Also this success is down to your liaising with BMD which is vitally important in this category for such a big town. We were very impressed with the ‘3 for the Sea’ campaign – well done, this is a brilliant idea that could be spread to other coastal towns and villages far and wide. This project and others such as poster-free zones are all part of your role in improving and increasing awareness of environmental issues to the residents and visitors of Bray. Your ongoing extensive maintenance work is acknowledged in this category and especially well done on your graffiti cover up work (amply illustrated with many photos) which is always problematic in large urban areas. You mention the large scale maintenance needed for the green, silver and black utility boxes – is there potential for you to incorporate projects where these are painted /illustrated in order to make them into an interesting feature in themselves.

Bray features many large and long-established housing estates as beautifully illustrated in your submission – all the photographs give a great impression of all the hard work and good community cheer and spirit that goes into the maintenance of these areas! The Fassaroe newly-painted naming stones were looking well with some nice pollinator-friendly plants around them and well done to the Oldcourt residents’ association on their great maintenance projects achieved in the last year. Ballymorris was also looking well after all the hard work carried out there over the last year. We like your mobile ‘Bray Tidy Towns at work’ sign! We really enjoyed reading the Bray Area Travellers’ Community Development Group leaflet highlighting the heritage of Bray’s Travelling community and links to the Blind Lane and the historic well. In our fast-changing world it is vitally important that these historic and special places be documented and minded. This is especially important in formerly rural areas where encroaching urbanisation can obliterate ancient landscapes and the important links that local people such as the Bray Travellers’ Community could potentially disappear. Well done on supporting such an important project – we look forward to more similar projects in the future as the ancient landscape of the greater Bray area could be hiding plenty more fascinating landscape secrets! Your application features many potential future reports in this category – we look forward to the development of these – you have lots of worthwhile ideas – your proposed ‘Heritage building/feature of the month idea is a brilliant one and of huge relevance in a town such as Bray which has such a rich and beautiful built heritage that needs all the support it can get!

Your work minding the Old Courthouse which is such a prominent building located in the centre of town is really important. As you mention it appears to be passing ‘under the radar’ despite its prominence and lovely vernacular architecture. Even the open area in front of it is crying out for more public use – it would make a perfect open-air café situated where it is - sheltered and elevated above the busy main thoroughfare. No pollinator-friendly plants were seen in the flowerbeds – as mentioned above the ‘Pollinator Planting Code’ has extensive lists of such plants that could be used here. There was a large Buddleia growing out of the gutter at the front of the building and clearly this will result in structural damage if left. The control of the ivy, however, is another story. Ivy is a plant of huge biodiversity value in Ireland as it provides pollen and fruit in the depths of winter as well as evergreen hibernations sites for many different species and so its control is something that always needs careful thought. In general, a ‘short back and sides’ is recommended for ivy on old buildings and trees unless it is actually causing structural damage. On adjudication day ugly, dead, brown ivy (no longer of any biodiversity value) was hanging on the Old Courthouse building and the removal of this will lead to more problems in the future. The beautiful Stone Pine tree was looking well at the Dublin and Upper Dargle Roads junction. This is indeed a rare tree that deserves good maintenance to prolong its life especially as it forms such a landmark here. Perhaps its presence might inspire some planting of this species in other public open areas/parks of Bray thus ensuring a continuous presence of this lovely type of Pine tree. It is unclear if you obtained the advice of a professional Tree surgeon in order to work on the Stone Pine at the Ravenswell Triangle but please ensure you do for any future work – the Tree Council of Ireland will point you in the right direction (www.treecouncil.ie). Well done on all your liaising work when it comes to roundabouts, bustops and signs around Bray’s approach roads – lots of communication is the way forward on all these projects.

You are the caretakers of beautiful Bray which has an embarrassment of natural, historical and architectural heritage riches! However, most importantly Bray clearly has a local community of residents and visitors who cherish their local place and have a fantastic strength of community spirit. This has taken you far and bodes well for the future of Bray – we look forward to Bray TidyTowns’ future competition entries and the continuation of current and fruition of future great plans.

Welcome Greystones and thank you for your entry. A different adjudication time to normal but rest assured your adjudicator this year is very familiar with lovely Greystones and knows only too well the hard work you have all put in all through the year – this year and many previous going all the way back to 1985! Well done on your well-organised set-up reflected in your comprehensive application form. With regard to your entry form, I only have two small suggestions for improvement in this category. One is to consider colour-coding your project numbers on your excellent new map e.g. red for ‘Streetscape & Public Places’; blue for ‘Green spaces & landscaping’ etc. This will help your adjudicators in future adding clarity to your very busy map (a busy-ness that is only to be expected with such a well populated, busy urban area). The other suggestion is to elaborate a little more on your 3-5 Year Plan. Decide on whether you want to draw up a three or a five year plan and at its simplest form, present it in a table assigning years to different projects and delegating to different sub-committees etc. Such a Plan will help you see how much you have achieved, what you hope to achieve and help you plan the practicalities of who, how and where you can achieve those goals. You have a good size committee and a terrific number of volunteers which is as it should be considering how your great work is enhancing the quality of life for all in Greystones. You have established good links with many partners, stakeholders and sponsors and this is very important particularly in a large urban area. It is also very heartening to see you liaising with your TidyTowns neighbours in Delgany displaying the true TidyTowns spirit of reaching out and sharing information and time as everyone is working to the same ends of an improved environment for all residents and visitors. The generosity of Greystones Lawn Tennis Club and Greystones Library in offering free meeting space and facilities is more evidence of the great local community spirit. Many congratulations on the establishment of a Junior TidyTowns programme in Greystones – more inclusivity and a great investment in the future of TidyTowns in Greystones. It’s wonderful to hear how energising this programme has been to all the Greystones TidyTowns volunteers and we look forward to future developments with this project. Thank you for all the individual school reports included in your submission, these give a comprehensive idea of work going on across Greystones throughout the year. Your work with Restorative Justice is a new collaboration this adjudicator has not come across before with TidyTowns but is a wonderful example of how our community-wide movement can reach out to include so many with the healing power of working together for the good of all at its heart. Good to hear of the Community Wellbeing evening in Greystones – these events are a great way of bringing people together who can help each other as you have found out.

You have a wide and varied area to cover from the historic village of Killincarrig right over to the new harbour and marina areas. Killincarrig still retains its old village feel with many old houses displaying some beautiful vernacular architectural features. The new harbour has a completely different feel but it is developing well and is clearly being very well used for all sorts sporting and leisure uses. The expanded playground is terrific and was being very well-used on adjudication day. It is so perfectly located close to the beach and at the bottom of the town’s main street. The heart-shaped bike racks bring a smile to the face in the centre of the town. They were being well used on adjudication day with lots of bikes locked on. The paving outside the train station looked very well with the metalwork wheelchair sign neatly sitting in to the cobbled stonework. Also the metal of the wheelchair sign tied in with the same metal used in the square tree surrounds nearby giving a beautiful integration to the streetscape. Clearly a lot of thought was put in to this streetscape design and it looks very well. The use of granite was also noted – the use of the stone type local to an area is so important and something that is unfortunately too often overlooked in Ireland. The outdoor seating of Greystones main street has become a great feature of the town – all through the year not just in the summer and it adds a great vibrancy to the centre of town. Keeping paths navigable for all is vitally important here but you are well aware of this so eating and drinking al fresco is a positive experience for all in Greystones. This also ties in with your philosophy in the Access Greystones Project and we look forward to more developments with this worthwhile and inclusive project into the future. Burnaby Park is a wonderful green oasis on the main street through Greystones and is clearly well-used and loved locally with more heart-shaped bike racks, good benches and a new drinking water tap – all brilliant ways to provide benefits to the people of Greystones. The new fruit trees are a lovely idea to have in the centre of town and we look forward to your future plans for more tree and shrub planting in the park. Good luck with your Historic Plaques project – these types of projects have gained even more importance in recent years with population movements and many people now living in Greystones who have no idea about historic events and people of interest in their new locality.

You have many beds to look