- A woods that was planted by the people of Galway in March 2000 which is now teeming with wildlife
- The lovely Terryland River which is home to fish, birds and other aquatic creatures
- Alcohol cans, bottles & other detritus strewn across a forest floor and pathway beside a park bench (p.s. I later removed this litter)
A
motion from Councillor Imelda Byrne, which has been on the city council
agenda since last January, to establish a permanent on-the-grounds
seven days a week wardens/rangers unit for our city parks will hopefully
be finally discussed at today’s meeting of city councillors.
It is important that all city councillors support this motion for the sake of our parks, our people and our biodiversity.
It is long overdue that such a unit was established.
The
city’s parks were a godsend during COVID for so many of our citizens.
As per the ambition of the Galway National Park City initiative that is
supported by such a broad strata of society, green and blue spaces need
to be integrated into the fabric of cities.
But
we need the resources and investment to ensure that they are safe and
of high maintenance for the benefit of the public and for enhancing
urban biodiversity. Sadly this is not the case at present with litter,
anti-social drinking, vandalism and broken furniture too often
symptomatic of our green spaces. The limitations placed on volunteer
activity organising regular group litter pick-ups etc since March 2020
has only made a bad situation worse.
In
so many other cities such as Dublin and across Europe, there are
full-time wardens in public parks to ensure overnight litter is removed
early every morning, that repairs and graffiti removal are quickly
carried out etc. By their very presence, wardens also act as a deterrent
to anti social elements that use and damage our precious green spaces.
There
is only one warden in Galway city's public parks who took up her duties
early last year. She is top class and does an awesome job in Terryland
Forest Park and elsewhere. Yet she is only there for circa half a week
as she has other duties to take responsibility for. Furthermore,
neither she or anybody else is on duty at weekends when so much damage
is done. The other parks personnel are also brilliant hardworking people
that love their work and do so much good. But there are very few in
number and have to cover all of the city’s parks and green spaces.
At
the very least Galway’s three main parks need full time on-the-ground
staff (park wardens/rangers) 7 days a week as otherwise broken fences,
broken seating, graffiti, rubbish can be left on location for long
periods. With this present situation exacerbated by the presence of
drinkers etc, people can understandably be turned off visiting the parks
at the very time when medical science is telling us of their importance
to human and planetary health.
Furthermore,
the wardens' terms of reference must include not just litter picking,
providing information to visitors but also repairing fencing, planting
trees, paths upkeep etc.
A
few weeks ago the government offered Galway City Council twenty two new
staff positions for the development of walking and cycling. Should City
Hall not take some of these personnel and assign them to the parks in
order to design, development and maintenance of natural walking trails
and walking/cycling path routes?
Why No Permanent Bins at Park Entrances?
Last
September, as a community (GCCN) representative on the Special Policy
Committee of Galway City Council dealing with Climate Change,
Environment, Recreational and Amenity I proposed a motion, based on my
experiences of the parks in other parts of Ireland such as Dundalk, that
large permanent applicable park bins, supported by information signage
and that are regularly emptied, be placed at the entrance to all three
main parks as an alternative to the plastic bags that are presently
pinned to benches-which though they do indeed help in keeping parks
clean- sadly are ugly, flimsy and tend to tear easily. This was
supported by all community reps and indeed all other members. Officials
told us at the follow up meeting in early December that these bins would
be in place by Christmas. Sadly this has not happened and members have
not being given an explanation why this is the case, even though we
asked.
Anti-social elements above prosecution?
It
is disgraceful and an insult to the citizens of Galway that at least up
until a few weeks ago some individuals who did so much damage to
Terryland Forest Park in December-January by ripping up and burning
fences, gates and trees, destroying paths, lighting fires and covering
large swathes with rubbish subsequently walked through this very same
park with impunity.
I have asked An Garda Síochána and Galway City
Council, who were so helpful during the period of destruction(especially Sgt. Browne, parks staff & cllr Niall McNelis), to issue a barring order preventing them from entering this
taxpayer funded facility. I am told that this is not practically possible under
present legislation.
I
and others cannot and should not accept such a situation and have
requested that an action group be set up consisting of community reps,
Garda, city parks personnel and other appropriate agencies to look at
coordinating the protection our parks. After all the law should be
there to protect the common good and public facilities from those that
seek to destroy it.
No comments:
Post a Comment