Tidy Towns give thumbs down to using Roundup

BY JACKIE KEOGH

A PROACTIVE tidy towns committee has said ‘No’ to Roundup and other pesticides when it comes to making Skibbereen a weed-free town.

Jerome O’Dwyer, the committee chairman, confirmed that they manually removed three wheelbarrow loads of weeds from Baltimore Road alone on a recent Saturday – a labour-intensive but hugely positive development, since they banned the use of toxic weed killers.

‘We have made a big effort this year,’ said Jerome. ‘It took us four Saturdays to do the by-pass, but we did it. It is difficult work, but rewarding not to be using Roundup and other pesticides.

‘We hope to continue it and get a couple of more members out to give us a hand as we work on the town section-by-section.

‘Last Tuesday night,’ he said, ‘a group of 12 of us started on Market Street and Townshend Street and we hope to finish that this week.’

The chairman listed other positive developments in the town, including the biodiversity project by Mark Lee of Skibbereen Garden Centre at the Baltimore Road roundabout.

Behind the grotto at Cork Rd, was painted by local painter John O’Sullivan, and there are flowers going in there this week, said Jerome.

‘There were about 320 shrubs planted at the Baltimore Rd roundabout and next week Lidl will be planting flowers at the Schull Rd and Cork Rd roundabouts,’ he added.

Jerome said anyone with any ideas or projects they’d like to carry out can contact any member of the committee. 

He also urged people to come out and join them for their regularly weekly tidy-up. 

They meet every Tuesday night at 7pm in the Fairfield car park.