Monday, March 03, 2008

Cleaning up and helping out-Robertshill the spot


It's great when neighbours get together and do things for themselves. The Robertshill estate on the Western side of Kilkenny city has had more than its share of detractors over the years, most of the coverage it gets being pretty unfair. It's one of the biggest private estates in the city area, mostly made up of starter homes and medium priced apartments and homes.


The quality of finish in the estate is not the best and the residents have long been frustrated at a number of issues including a lack of adequate parking, speeding traffic, poor landscaping and consistent problems with illegal dumping and rubbish.


Fair play to my colleague, Cllr. Malcolm Noonan, who helped the residents organise a meeting with a view to setting up a formal residents association. I missed the first public meeting, but I hope to be there this Wednesday night when the group formalises itself.


Meanwhile, Malcolm, along with Cllr. John Coonan and I came along to give a practical hand out with the greoup's first activity-a clean-up of the estate on Saturday morning. A group of about forty people gave up their Saturday morning to sweep the roads and paths, remove the weeds and get together for a chat in the process.


It was great to see many of the non-national residents, who are often criticised for neglecting the homes they rent or own, playing their part.


Hopefully it's the start of many days of co-operation to come. By the way, thanks a million to the lovely lady who provided the welcome tea and coffee at the end.


Here she is with the equally lovely John Coonan who needs all the publicity he can get!


No comments: