While some towns and traders may have lashed up the Christmas decorations the moment Halloween was over, Midleton may well be the last town in the country to switch on their lights.

An east Cork group striving to build an €800,000 youth and community centre must raise €200,000 by May or risk losing the project.

Midleton Town Council has voted to proceed with a €2m footpath regeneration programme, despite claims by traders that lost parking spaces will cost businesses €1.5m a year.

THE villages and townlands of Dungourney, Clonmult, Lisgoold and Leamlara lie about 13km north of Midleton in East Cork.

Campsite owners concede they are having their best July in 30 years as families haul dusty tents out of the shed and maximise their time outdoors in the good weather.

Plans to install warning signs at four storm water retention ponds in east Cork have been abandoned after residents complained they could adversely affect their house values.

An outspoken town councillor and leading suicide prevention campaigner spoke last night of his shame after his arrest on suspicion of drink driving.

A town council is demanding junior environment minister Jan O’Sullivan resign after she issued a directive ordering the dezoning of land in a suspected floodplain.

A long-serving public representative has described efforts to have a designated flood plain dezoned as “like the passion of Christ”.

A town council is set to defy a Government request to overturn a rezoning decision.

Moves to allow the development of a town centre on a flood plain in Midleton have been challenged by Housing and Planning Minister Jan O’Sullivan.

A TD has claimed it may be illegal for a town council in Cork to use taxpayers’ money to mount a legal challenge against Environment Minister Phil Hogan’s plans to abolish the country’s 80 town councils.

A local authority has defied the Government’s guidelines and refused to dezone a flood plain earmarked for development.

Environment Minister Phil Hogan’s proposal to abolish town councils is facing a legal challenge.

An East Cork local authority is to consider investing a further €70,000 in a youth and community project to help the scheme’s co-ordinators acquire €750,000 in grant aid.

A LOCAL council is to pump its financial reserves into rejuvenating a town centre in a planned economy-boosting measure.

PERKS Amusements hope to begin operating a family entertainment and casino centre in Midleton early in the New Year.

A Fianna Fáil mayor has said it is time for Taoiseach Brian Cowen to resign.

BARACK OBAMA used the latest technology to get his message across to voters.

I WELCOME your report headlined ‘€30m ferry taxi moves a step closer’ (September 1).

TRANSPORT Minister Martin Cullen, still hasn’t signed the Railway Order which would enable work to start on Cork’s €139 million commuter upgrade.

“CORK City Councillors have warned developers that they will not bow to pressure to rezone sports grounds for developments,” (The Irish Examiner, February 28, 2007).

A CHARGE of monumental neglect of a rapidly expanding village has been levelled at Cork County Council.

ON the biggest weekend of his ministerial career to-date, Environment Minister Martin Cullen has been accused of deliberately setting out to get rid of independents in public life.

EAST CORK councillors are championing a nationwide campaign to get the Government to reduce the delay in releasing post mortem-examination results to two months.

A MEETING of Midleton Town Council next month may decide the fate of a proposed multi-million euro commercial and housing development earmarked for a five-and-a-half acre site just off the town centre at Riverside Way.