‘Amenity wardens’ at Sligo beaches
SLIGO County Council is hoping to have “amenity wardens” at beaches in the county this summer.
It is planned that the role of the wardens will be to be a “presence” for the council and to deal with issues such as litter and parking.
The response to advertisements by the council for people to act as wardens will be a factor in determining at how many and at what beaches there will be wardens.
The information about the new wardens was given at a meeting of Ballymote-Tubbercurry Municipal District.
Cllr Michael Clarke had proposed a motion calling on the council to assign full-time lifeguards at Dunmoran beach “given that we will again experience huge crowds because of staycations”.
He also asked for an outline of the council’s plan for “enhanced cover in the county”.
Acting director of services Emer Concannon said that the council was constrained as to how many lifeguards can be on duty at any one time, not only by budgets, but also by the number of qualified applicants that there are each year. “It has been the case in the past that we have not been able to provide cover at the beaches where there should be lifguards due to a lack of staff,” she said. Ms Concannon said that at this stage the recruitment process was ongoing and they were unable to tell what the situation was going to be for the upcoming season. However, she said it was unlikely that they would have the resources to facilitate Cllr Clarke’s request and would only be able to provide lifeguard cover at Dunmoran each weekend in July and August, as proposed and budgeted for. Ms Concannon said that they had also recently advertised for the recruitment of additional staff, in the form of “amenity wardens”, who would be available to deal with some of the other issues such as parking and littering.
Cllr Clarke said that he was just conscious that the concerns of local people and the local organisation that looks after Dunmoran Strand were conveyed to the council and he was happy that they were doing their best.
Cllr Dara Mulvey said that last year was “so busy” there. “Already there are a lot of people going down so once the heat comes into the water there are going to be an awful lot of people using it. It’s a very safe beach and it gets people from a large area,” he said. Cllr Joe Queenan asked about the role of the amenity wardens and if they would be all over the county. Ms Concannon said it was “a trial really for this summer”. “Depending on the response we get from the advertisment we will try and spread it out as much as we can throughout the county and to have people at the beaches.
“It is really to try and have a council presence and to try and deal with the litter and to up our offering,” she said.