IBAL GIVES MALLOW A CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH
TOWN FINISHES 19TH OUT OF 40 ON FIRST ROUND OF 2017 LITTER LEAGUE
AFTER an absence of several years, Mallow has been included on the first round of judging for the 2017 Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) league.
The last time the town was included in the IBAL survey was in 2010, when the town finished 48th out of the 53 towns and locations included in the survey and was labelled by competition judges as being “littered”.
The latest IBAL table, released on Monday, has shown that the hard work undertaken by groups such as Mallow Today Towns, Cork County Council and the Mallow Development Partnership during the intervening years has paid off.
Mallow ranked in a creditable 19th position of the 40 locations included on the table, alongside Monaghan and Portlaoise and received ‘Clean to European Norms’ designation.
To put this achievement into perspective, Thomondgate in Limerick City finished in 16th place, just three places ahead of Mallow, and was the lowest ranked area to receive the top designation of ‘Cleaner Than European Norms.’
The IBAL judging panel was fulsome in their praise for the town, describing its standing on the litter league as “a good performance from Mallow on its return to the Irish Business Against Litter programme.”
As seen on the adjacent panel the panel surveyed some 10 areas around Mallow town and the surrounding area during their visit to North Cork.
Of these seven received the highest A grade, two were B grades with only one, the derelict site at Ballydaheen being graded C.
In their summation, the judges said they were particularly impressed with the Blackwater (Avondhu) Way, describing it as a “wonderful river-walk environment that was beautifully presented and maintained.”
Other top ranking sites including Mallow Castle, William O’Brien Street and Mallow Town Park/Bishop Casey Memorial Park, which they described as “a wonderful resource” for the town.
The town’s Main Street also drew praise from judges who said it was “characterised by ‘olde’ style street lamps and abundant hanging baskets, all of which were in very good order.”
While the general Ballydaheen area was also among the sites to receive an A grade, judges did note that the derelict site there was “by far the most littered” in the town with “heavy levels of a wide variety of litter present.”
Judges also expressed their disappointment at the number of shut down, run down, for sale and sold derelict properties in Ballydaheen “which were in poor condition.”
Niall O’Keeffe, the chair of Mallow Tidy Towns said he was “very pleased” with the town’s first round standings on the 2017 league.
“It reflects on the efforts of all stakeholders, such as Cork County Council and the Tidy Towns volunteers to keep the town looking well and pick up litter. Of Course, we still very much need to get the message out to people not to drop litter in the first place, but that is a work in progress,” said Niall.
He said the results reflected an increased sense of ownership within the local community, particularly among residents associations, with people addressing the problems in their own areas and adhering to the Tidy Towns motto of ‘ keeping your patch up to scratch’.
Niall also said he believed Mallow could make it into the Top 10 on the table this year. “Overall, I would say it was a good report, with the addendum that it could be better,” he said.