Bray Coastcare award

BRAY Coastcare has been recognised by the Clean Coasts Ocean Hero awards under the ‘Long-term Commitment’ category.

Each year, these awards honour the invaluable contribution Clean Coasts volunteers, groups and communities have made towards conserving our spectacular coastline. The awards were conceived in 2006, consisting then of only one category, ‘ The Clean Coasts Group of the Year’.

Since then, the Clean Coasts programme has grown to engage over 1,200 groups on the coast and celebrate many Ocean Heroes nationwide.

In a nod to the Ocean Hero Awards that are normally held at this time of year, the work of these dedicated groups and individuals was highlighted in a week of online celebrations in December. Groups shared their stories, achievements and advice for how other groups can get back on track in 2021.

Many volunteers around the country made a great effort to carry out beach cleans while following government guidelines and restrictions, for example, dividing stretches of coastline to be cleaned, setting up online event registration to ensure numbers were capped, and putting extra measures in place for sanitisation of equipment. Seamus Connor, chairperson of Bray Coastcare, said: ‘We have been running as a group since 2007 and we are passionate about looking after the coast to keep Bray beautiful for the residents and tourist, but also to look after the local wildlife.’

‘At a time when we usually celebrate our Ocean Hero Awards,we want to take a moment to recognise those groups and individuals who have gone above and beyond to protect our coast this year and to celebrate our long-standing volunteers,’ said Sinead McCoy, Coastal Communities Manager