Banteer Lyre & Districts Community Council/Banteer Tidy Towns Committee is a very active body in the locality and continuously strives to improve the Banteer /Lyre and Districts area.

Approximately 3 years ago, the Tidy Towns Committee, which is a sub committee of the Community Council, installed litter bins with the help of local sponsors in Banteer Village to further improve litter control in the area.   At that time it was agreed that the County Council would empty the bins weekly and had done so from then until last December.

However, since late 2003 the weekly collection of these public litter bins has stopped and there has been a number of discussions and meetings with Cork County Council to try and resolve the issue. Since December the County Council have however emptied the bins on approx 3 occasions at the request and under pressure from the local community. 

At a recent Community Council meeting in Banteer, those present expressed their concern and anger at the fact that no resolution of the issue is in sight and the fact it is left in limbo is causing major problems for the local community. 

The issues are as follows:

-The litterbins, were paid for and installed by the local committee some 3 years ago, to improve litter control in the area. 

-Cork County Council had been emptying these bins weekly for the past few years and has now reneged on this service. 

-The lack of this regular weekly service since December/January last is not acceptable any longer to the Community.  Bins are now always full and each morning birds etc spread rubbish around the Street areas.  This has to be cleaned and also causes a health hazard locally.

-Cork County Council is promoting a County Council litter challenge competition at present.   If the committee do hold litter clean ups, they cannot put it in public bins, as they are not emptied and if it is put in private bins, private individuals pay for disposal of community litter by weight.

The Committee has expressed serious reservations re entering this year’s litter challenge competition, as it makes a joke of the present position that the community find themselves in. 

-The County Council did put forward a proposal that communities employ someone locally to empty bins weekly into a County Council supplied wheelie bin but this option is not possible, as the community would then need to have separate Employers Liability Insurance.  

-The Community Council have proposed that a local Council employee does it in his own time and under Councils insurance and instruction and that the Council then compensates that person for this work

-The Community Council also understands that the North Cork area is the only area in Cork County that does not presently have a regular weekly collection service of public litter bins by Cork County Council. 

The Community Council/Tidy Towns Committee has called for the regular weekly collection of public litter bins to be restored without delay. 

Other Communities in the North Cork area are also in the same predicament and a meeting with Cork County Council officials is scheduled for Annabella Mallow on this Thurs 10^th June at 8pm.

At an open meeting in Castletownroche recently attended by many communities, serious concerns and reservations were expressed re the lack of this regular service.   

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