Cavan town takes silver in tidy towns

Cavan Town made a significant breakthrough in this year’s National Tidy Towns competition by exploding through the 300-mark barrier to pick up a silver medal.

The county town was awarded  307 marks, an increase of 13 on its 2014 performance.

Cavan gained marks in every discipline, according to the adjudication report, and Director of Services, Ger Finn said: “We are delighted with the substantial improvement in the marks and we are now well placed to go for national honours, in view of the fact that we are not far adrift of the national winners Letterkenny.

“We now have a great combined effort going forward featuring the Chamber of Commerce/Business people of Cavan, Cavan County Council and the Tidy Towns Committee”.

Mr Finn also paid tribute to the former Town Clerk Brian Hora and Town Engineer, Alan Lyons for their progressive work over the years, “which also assisted in Cavan getting this great result”.

 

Premier division

The chairperson of the Cavan Tidy Towns Committee, Brian Allen, told The Anglo-Celt that this result gives Cavan the impetus to “go for the premier division”.

“The hard work really begins from here on out. We are over the moon. We were not expecting such an improvement in marks,” he said.

Mr Allen further pointed out that the adjudicator praised the great work being done in the estates by the residents in conjunction with Marty Lynch.

Derry Scanlon, Cavan Belturbet Municipal district manager said that this was a great result for Cavan Town, particularly given the ongoing sewerage scheme works. Cavan was one of 19 towns from across the county that participated in this year’s national competition. The picturesque village of Redhills is now also in real touching distance of 300 points. It achieved 294 points, nine marks ahead of last year.

Gowna too has been a high achiever for many years and jumped this year by eight marks to an impressive tally of 294.

Killeshandra gained an extra 12 marks to reach 276 points, which leaves them in fourth place in the county with Belturbet hot on their heels in fifth place. 

Belturbet adding a full 10 marks to its 2014 tally, to hit 265 points.

Meanwhile, Mullagh is up eight to 265 points, Virginia is just three marks behind on 262. Virginia won the national title on back-to-back occasions in 1964 and ’65.

Ballyjamesduff also won the title on two consecutive occasions in 1966 and ’67. It too is improving with 259 marks awarded, while Kingscourt and Arva are both on the 256 mark. Bailieboro and Maghera are just two points adrift on 254.

Kilcogy achieved a mark of 243; while Kilnaleck scooped an endeavour award as a result of jumping 16 marks to 241 points.

Bawnboy raised the bar by a full 10 points to 236, while Ballinagh added no less than 13 marks to bring their tally to 234.

Ballyconnell, which won the national title in 1971, also made considerable progress by adding 12 marks to bring their total to 230. Blacklion propelled their tally up by a significant eleven marks to 228, while Swanlinbar who entered this year, recorded a mark of 220.