Councillor says litter strewn childrens' park 'embarrassing'

By Dara Bradley

A new initiative encouraging city community groups to ‘take ownership’ of parks and playgrounds in their areas will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

City Hall is planning to ask community groups to ‘adopt’ Galway City Council owned parks – the groups will be asked to visit the amenities during out-of-hours times to check for anti-social behaviour. The groups will also be asked to carry out voluntary clean-ups.

The move comes following confirmation from the Council that its cleaning regime at weekends is being curtailed due to a lack of funding to pay for staff overtime.

The ‘adopt a park’ initiative also comes after the state of a popular city playground has been branded as a “disgrace” after alcohol cans and bottles were strewn over it at the weekend.

City Councillor Pádraig Conneely says the Children’s Millennium Park on University Road was covered in litter – including broken Buckfast bottles and beer cans – when he visited it on Sunday morning.

The bins were overflowing and had not been emptied, added the Fine Gael Cllr, who has demanded a report from City Hall into the litter blackspot.

More than 40 young children and their parents visited the park on Sunday and Cllr Conneely said it was an “embarrassment” that the Council has failed to keep the park clean.

The park has been the subject of alcohol-related litter in the past although the problem is understood to have been exacerbated by underage drinking during the schools’ mid-term break.

A Council spokesperson acknowledged it was aware of the situation at the Children’s Millennium Park.

Eyre Square, Salthill and the city centre are cleaned seven days a week but the Millennium Park is cleaned just on weekdays although the Council is hoping, subject to staffing issues, the park will be included in weekend cleaning soon.

The spokesperson said that the park used to be locked every night at 9pm but this is no longer happening due to a shortfall in funding to pay staff overtime. Regardless of whether the park is locked or not, it can be easily accessed at night if people are determined enough to jump the gates, he said. “There’s only so much we can do. We can’t be there all night picking up after them”.

In the short-term, Council staff will continue to clean the park, and hope to extend the cleaning regime to weekends.

The Parks’ Department of the Council also hopes to encourage community groups to ‘adopt’ parks in their areas, which will encourage locals to take ownership of their amenities, he added.

“Linking up with local community groups to adopt parks won’t solve the immediate problem but we are trying to be proactive and its about people taking ownership of public space in the city,” he said.