Monday, 16 January 2012 12:23

Swords received a massive shot in the arm last week, with the news that it is officially Ireland’s second cleanest town. This follows last week’s announcement that the town had surged up the Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) league to become Dublin’s cleanest town and the nation’s second cleanest. Great credit is due to all parties involved, especially to the Council’s Swords/ Balbriggan Operations Department and it demonstrates what can be achieved when the community rallies around and pulls together. In 2004, Swords was classified as a Litter Blackspot and in the intervening seven years, the famed North County resilience took over, resulting in this outstanding result. This has come about as a result of the massive anti-litter drive around the town, which is hoped will result in Swords becoming a more desirable place to do business. In the final IBAL survey for 2011, the North County capital finished second overall behind Trim, Co Meath, which collected the coveted prize for the country’s ‘cleanest town.’ The result should be attributed to the hard work of anti-litter compliant businesses around the area, Swords Tidy Town Committee, and the newly formed Operations Department within the County Council. The result is all the more significant when compared with The Airport, which has huge resources and was classified as ‘Moderately Littered’. It is widely hoped that the announcement will provide a welcome boost for business within the town following the hugely successful community based anti-litter initiative - an area of focus which has intensified over the past twelve months in particular. Des Becton, Swords Tidy Town Chairman, was quick to point to the Council’s new Swords/Balbriggan Operations Department, citing them as a key factor to this year’s success. “I would like to congratulate the new management and staff within the Operations Department of the County Council, which was set up to amalgamate the old Environment, Parks and Roads Departments. They’ve worked hard on this (anti-litter campaign) and we are looking forward to working more closely with them next year in order to get out and achieve the overall IBAL winner’s prize,” he said. Meanwhile, Paul Smyth, the Council’s Head of Operations for Balbriggan/Swords told the County Leader after the announcement was made: “We are delighted that Swords has been placed 2nd in the 2011 IBAL litter survey. This result is reward for all the hard work put in by a number of groups most particularly the Council’s street cleaning crews and Litter Warden Service, the Tidy Towns volunteers, local businesses, the Environmental Awareness Team, schools and of course the citizens of Swords. The challenge now is to maintain the standard.” Speaking to the County Leader, Tony Lambert, CEO Fingal Chamber of Commerce said: “From the beginning of the IBAL surveys, when Swords didn’t do that well, we have taken an awareness of the importance of anti-litter as a major part of our drive to make Swords more friendly to shop in; a more friendly place to do business in, and it is now paying off. This is a major achievement and a great benefit to the business community.” “We want to continue this work, from a Chamber point of view, to make sure that we make the town the number one anti-litter town in the country.” The report on Swords highlighted ‘the wonderful’ achievement and encouraged local residents to ‘appreciate and celebrate’ the result. The town, ‘clean to European norms,’ received ‘A’ grades across all categories with significant improvements to both Main Street and Swords Business Park noted.