Community council is making real difference
Issues of concern in Balrothery addressed at latest meeting
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Recently, a delegation from the community council attended the latest in its now regular meetings with the local authority to discuss issues of concern in Balrothery. These meetings now happen at least twice a year and the community council was represented at the latest meeting by the organisation's chairman, Niall Keady, secretary, Margaret Haugh and Martin Fanning from its heritage committee. The community council is pleased with its new level of engagement with Fingal County Council and with the degree of progress made across several issues but that does not mean that there are not serious concerns in the area that still need to be addressed.
At the meeting, the community council delegation laid out its priorities for the year ahead. The community council listed roads and traffic, a crisis in the availability of local school places, the development of local sporting and community amenities, unfinished housing developments and the protection of the heritage of the village as its main five priorities for 2009. The community council has been successful in keeping up the pressure on the local authority and other agencies to address problems in the area and that is set to continue in the year ahead. Some of the road issues up for focus this year will be the dangerous Skerries and Man O'War junctions and addressing the bottle neck at the entrance to the village and reducing speeds through the village.
The village has a school crisis, which the community council want addressed as a matter of urgency. New houses without new school places has left the local national school in a position where it cannot offer any new places for the next five years.
The organisation also wants better access to its sporting amenities, including the local playing fields and tennis courts and Balrothery's rugby and cricket clubs. The community council is also lobbying for a new playground for the area.
One of the issues that prompted the very establishment of the community council was the amount of unfinished estates in Balrothery and this is still an issue the group is working on today as is the protection of the village's precious history and heritage.
- JOHN MANNING
