Clean up work from 2011 at Kerdiffstown Landfill
Kildare County Council have rejected the application for a new waste facility adjacent to the contentious Kerdiffstown landfill site. Cllr. James Lawless has welcomed the decision which will come as relief for residents living nearby in Sallins, Naas and Johnstown. The application submitted by David Boylan Limited earlier in 2014 was met with unprecedented resistance with over 800 objections lodged.
The council have made the right decision this week as there were grave concerns over this proposed facility. The public had lost trust in future developments at this site given past environmental and safety abuses. Hundreds of objections were submitted, including my own. Hopefully the rejection of the waste permit now finally closes the curtain on any further plans for waste dumping at Kerdiffstown.
The long awaited protocol from Irish Water for taking in charge of estates finally issued on the 6th November. I have been campaigning for estates to be taken in charge by the council for the past two years. When an estate is taken in charge it means that the council assume responsibility for maintenance such as fixing street lights and repairing broken kerbs. If an estate is not taken in charge it can lie in limbo for years with nobody performing basic maintenance, especially with so many builders going bust in recent years. I had been working with a number of estates to get them taken over by the council and the final blocker was Irish Water which had created an obstacle from the 1st January this year on any new taking in charges.
One of the themes of my election campaign was to revitalise Naas town centre and restore the commercial heart of the town. Last August, shortly after being elected to the positions of Naas Mayor and Deputy Mayor respectively, Cllr. Seamie Moore and myself embarked on a series of meetings with traders throughout Naas town. Over the course of six meetings during August and September we met traders from different parts of the town and gathered notes on the issues that mattered to them. I would like to think we had a good handle on the “big picture” issues already but it is always worthwhile hearing what people have to say directly. We intend to tackle the big ticket items identified as far as we can and I will update again on those efforts in due course.
One of the town centre items that came up at the last council meeting concerned plans to upgrade the “