City boss’s disbelief at Cork’s No 1 litter position

CORK’S city manager has described as “regrettable and misleading” a survey that ranked the city as the country’s most littered.

Joe Gavin came out fighting yesterday after the release of the latest Irish Business Against Litter results.

The survey of 55 towns and cities around Ireland, was carried out by An Taisce earlier this year.

While it praised the appearance of St Patrick’s Street, citing its clean and fresh appearance, Oliver Plunkett Street, Fitzgerald’s Park, and the Lough amenity area, it still ranked Cork the most littered city in Ireland and Cobh the dirtiest town.

Mr Gavin said it was very unfair to label the entire city as littered when only its approach roads — the responsibility of the county council — were found to be littered.

“It does an injustice to the city,” Mr Gavin said.

IBAL described Cork as “a tale of two cities”. The centre has improved considerably, but the city was let down by approach roads, the survey said.

“Cork is typical of cities, where approach roads, the responsibility of the county council, are not managed with the same rigour as the city centre, which is under a different authority,” said IBAL chairman Dr Tom Cavanagh.

“Weeds on many of these approach roads often spoil the visual impact of the beautiful shrubberies.”

Cobh, at the foot of the IBAL league table, was branded “seriously littered”, along with Bray and Tullamore.

Only 20% of sites in Cobh were clean to European norms, compared to 90% in several inland towns.

“It is very disturbing to see Cobh at the bottom of the league, a harbour town that welcomes on average 70,000 tourists off luxury cruise liners every summer,” said Dr Cavanagh.

“Greeting tourists with litter and weeds creates a very poor first impression of Ireland. It is all the more disappointing as Cobh, with its beautiful setting, has enormous potential.”

But Mr Gavin said to single out Cork city as a litter blackspot does a disservice to the 70-strong team which cleans the city daily.

“Cork is one of the cleanest in the country. The reference that we are dirtiest is both regrettable and misleading,” he said.

“Anyone that has walked the city in last few years, couldn’t but see how much progress has been made.

“We spend €7 million annually on street cleaning and litter awareness. We have 70 people working to clean the city morning and nighttime. I am proud of the work they do.”

He accepted that there are difficulties on the approach roads and said they will be addressed.

Cork Business Association chairman Donal Healy said his organisation was dismayed by the survey results.

“We have had a lot of comments from visitors in recent months about how clean the city is,” he said.

However, Mr Cavanagh stood over the survey results.

He acknowledged huge improvements have been made in the city centre. But he said visitors to Cork don’t care where local authority responsibilities end or begin.

“That is now an issue for the city and county manager to resolve,” he said.

Meanwhile, a county councillor laid some of blame for chewing gum litter on the feet of Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane.

Cllr Michael Donegan, who lives in Charleville, has urged council officials to write to the Man Utd and Sunderland managers urging them not to chew gum during televised matches.

“It is having a bad influence on youngsters,” he said.