Council receives 80% of project funding sought

WICKLOW County Council chief executive Frank Curran has welcomed the allocation of funding to three outdoor recreation projects.

Vartry Reservoir Walk and Car Park will receive €157,705, St Kevin’s Way will receive €160,000 for an upgrade from Hollywood village to Glendalough and €149,600 will be provided for a reroute and repair of The Spinc in Glendalough.

The funding will be provided under Measure 2 of the 2018 Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme.

Addressing last Monday’s meeting of Wicklow County Council, Mr Curran said he was pleased with the funding levels which accounted for 80 per cent of the different projects the local authority sought funding for.

While Cllr Chris Fox welcomed the monthly management reports presented to Councillors, he felt the planning application section was lacking.

‘How many applications are submitted to Wicklow County Council? I find the figures slightly misleading. They don’t include applications whereby people have to withdraw them before a decision has been made because a refusal is recommended. One off housing applications often have to go through two to three applications in order to overcome all issues,’ said Cllr Fox.

Mr Curran replied that he would include the requested planning information in all future monthly management reports.

Cllr Edward Timmins felt all grants issued to community and voluntary groups should also be included in the reports to assist Councillors when allocating potential funds.

‘It’s to be welcomed that groups, voluntary and community, are receiving funding but there is no system in place where we can see a list of grants given to groups in our community, a system where we are informed which groups got funding. One of our functions with discretionary funding is to have a say over allocations. How can we make a sensible and informed opinion when we don’t know what groups have previously received funding? It will also give us an idea of where the funding is spent’.

Cllr Tommy Cullen was in agreement. He said: ‘Back in November we at Baltinglass Municipal District were asked to approve discretionary funding and we did, only to find out later that the same group had received funding from Wicklow County Council’.

Cllr Vincent Blake inquired about an empty council house in Knockananna which has been vacant for over a year.

‘I was told works would be carried out within six months of the fire. Now the property has been vacant for over a year’.

Director of Services, Joe Lane, said he would follow up the matter but believed an insurance issue might be responsible for the hold up.

Cllr Blake also requested an update over remediation works at the illegal dump at lands in Whitestown.

‘We need an update on the cost and the implications for Wicklow County Council’.

Chief Executive Curran said a detail site investigation was currently taking place.

‘When that work is done we will have an indication of the costs and will then sit down with the EPA and Department,’ said Mr Curran.