Elected members ‘must work together to secure funding’
COUNCILLORS believe that County Wicklow is missing out on funding streams when compared to other counties, the monthly meeting of Wicklow Municipal District heard last week.
In October, it was announced that €518,000 would be made available for seven projects in the Garden County under the Town and Village Renewal Scheme. Among these were two projects located within Wicklow Municipal District – €120,488 for public realm works in Newtownmountkennedy and €120,000 toward the lighting of landmark buildings in Wicklow town. Wicklow County Council made twelve submissions in all.
However, while Cllr Shay Cullen was glad €518,000 had been made available to Wicklow, he felt other counties had managed to secure far greater funding.
‘Offaly got €1.3 million and Wexford got €1.1 million. I believe we aren’t active enough in using our TDs and Ministers in this area,’ said Cllr Cullen. ‘We need to all get onside to push for Wicklow to get as much funding as possible. Obviously that is what is happening in other counties. I would love to have a look at the applications from other counties to see what they are doing and we aren’t. We put in twelve applications and seven were granted. Other counties put in twelve and got all twelve granted. Why are we being left behind in the system?’
Cllr Irene Winters suggested looking at the five applications which weren’t granted and compare them to the successful applications to see where they fell short.
District Manager Brian Gleeson said: ‘We have more applications. It comes down to the individual community and making sure they are ready. Some areas aren’t as proactive. We went to different areas to help them with their applications. We are getting there, certainly in comparison to a few years ago. We are getting up the ladder’.