Biodiversity Archives - Wexford Tidy Towns

Blog Archives

WTT Activities and News 2023

Posted on April 25, 2024 by Wexford Tidy Towns

Dec 23 –

So proud of our Wexford Tidytowns volunteers today for winning the most votes in the Wexford Volunteer Center calendar competition.

Thank you to everyone who voted and all the staff at the Volunteer Centre.

Nov 23 – As part of our committment to promoting Public Art projects in Wexford Town, Wexford Tidy Towns Volunteers, working with WWETB Community Education and artist Helen McLean have begun work on a Mosaic project to be installed on our Quayfront next spring. The work is entitled “A Shoal of Herrings”, and references an old Wexford tradition that no fishing boats shall put to see on St. Martin’s Eve (Nov 10th), following an ancient tragic legend of that date in 1762, when 70 fishermen drowned, having been warned by an apparition of St. Martin to return to shore.

Oct 23 We were over the moon to be awarded our third Gold Medal by Minister Heather Humphries at the 2023 Tidy Towns awards at Croke Park on 6th October, having achieved the Gold award in 2021 and 2022. It was also rewarding to find we had been awarded higher marks in each scoring category than in 2022, it is always great when the hard work and planning of the team is noticed and appreciated. We will not be resting on our laurels, we already have plans for the coming year in areas such as recruitment, collaborations, street art, sustainability and biodiversity.

Sept 23 – We are pleased to announce that another beautiful piece of Street Art, as part of Wexford Local Authorities’ initiative to commission creative artists to brighten our streetscapes with innovative wall art installations, laden with Wexford-specific connections. This piece was conceived and has now been completed in Abbey Street by EMIC ( Belfast artist Eoin McGinn ). Facing Wexford Arts Centre, the image is a moody depiction of a dancer, with the blue/green sea and clouds depicting a Wexford surround.

There is more information in this Irish Independent article on this Arts project. An interesting snippet from Eoin’s interview – “Today I’m going to paint 12 magpies because the first magpies in Ireland were sighted as being in Wexford town,” .

August 23 – Invitation: You are cordially invited to the Wexford Tidy Towns AGM, on Wed 6th September, at 7pm in the Pike Suite, Talbot Hotel.

July 23 – Very happy to report that our Volunteer numbers continue to rise – you may have noticed more hi-viz jackets out and about for our Saturday and Wednesday cleanups. We continue to be a diverse group, with Volunteers from over 16 nations worldwide.

Big thanks to Wexford Volunteer Centre for their help in referring willing helpers to our cause!

March 23 – Wexford’s application to host the 2024 Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann is successful, Yippee!! Wexford Tidy Towns will be engaging and working with all other involved groups to ensure that the expected 100,000 visitors for Fleadh week on 4th to 11th August 2024 will see Wexford at it’s sparkling best!

March 23 – Wexford Tidy Towns Volunteers are excited to be taking part in the Edible Gardens project, to be created in the Chamber of Commerce Car Park, Hill Street. This initiative is all about Biodiversity and Sustainability. The Edible Towns Network encourages a chemical-free approach to growing, and encourages communities to grow together and help Biodiversity. Find out more about the Edible Gardens Network HERE

October to December 2017 with Wexford Tidy Towns

Posted on December 30, 2017 by Wexford Tidy Towns

Wexford Tidy Towns volunteers continued their trojan efforts to keep Wexford clean and beautiful in the later Autumn and Winter months. Action Days and clean-ups saw lots of tasks tackled included planting around the town in areas such as Kennedy Park and Peters Square and four window boxes at the Wesleyan Church. Volunteers did lots of litter picking, sweeping and painting around the town. Wexford Tidy Towns even had a meeting with Santa in December in his new location on the Quays of Wexford! Check out the photos below to see some of the activities we got up to during these months. We just want to say thank you to all the Wexford Tidy Towns volunteers for helping keeping our beautiful town as litter free as possible.

Another big achievement for Wexford Tidy Towns group during this time was our trip to Tipperary on 20th November to collect our Silver Award and the Clean Air Award at the SuperValu South East Region Tidy Towns Awards having been awarded these at the National Tidy Town Awards in September. It was great to see all our hard work rewarded and we couldn’t have done it without everyone’s efforts. Have a read of the adjudicators report here.

Thank you to all those who helped us in any way in 2017 the volunteers who turned up for clean-ups, local residents who cleaned their own areas, businesses who maintained their premises or donated to our efforts, and every individual who cleans up after themselves. Remember to bin your litter and butts, pick up after your dog, report illegal dumping and we always need more Volunteers, so please join us and help us maintain our Silver Award and win Gold for Wexford in the future just get in touch or turn up at one of our clean-ups. Thanks for the continued support from the community and local businesses. Everyone can help keep Wexford clean and beautiful!

Posted in Biodiversity, Events, Tidy Towns Competition, Tidy Towns News

August to October 2017 with Wexford Tidy Towns

Posted on October 10, 2017 by Wexford Tidy Towns

We had a wonderful Summer with Wexford Tidy Towns, lots of clean-ups and projects around the town were undertaken. Thanks to Wexford in Bloom the town looked blooming wonderful all Summer long and into the early Autumn months. The baskets and window boxes around the town looked amazing and brightened up the area for all the locals and visitors. Meanwhile our volunteers were hard at work weeding and maintaining some of the flower beds around the town. Also thanks to local retailers for the donation of flowers we really appreciate them so we can cover more areas.

Wexford Tidy Towns volunteers took part in several clean-ups during these months. We litter picked, swept, planted, weeded and tackled some Japanese Knotweed. We even got to try out some new cleaning machines that made some of these tasks easier. Volunteers were up in the Rocks in Maudlintown tackling knotweed and doing a general clean of the area collecting over 35 bags of rubbish and knotweed from that area. We were back along the Quays and Grogans road for more painting, sweeping, and litter picking and in Peters Square for some planting. We also got the lane ways and Ferrybank litter picked and tackled the field beside the Clinic in Grogans Road. See some photos of our hardworking Wexford Tidy Town Volunteers undertaking some of these tasks below. Thank you everyone who came out and joined us at our clean-ups, new volunteers are always welcome.

One local initiative we would like to highlight is the installation of book boxes by Wexford Little Free Library the first one is located at The Bullring and the second in Redmond Park with wonderful artwork on them done by local artists. The one in Redmond Park is dedicated to children’s books. So keep an eye out for these around the town bring along a book you would like to donate and take a different one. Check out their Facebook Page for future plans and locations of new boxes around Wexford.

The I.B.A.L. results (Irish Business Against Litter) for 2017 saw Wexford joint 26th out of 40 towns which was a drop in the rankings compared to last years results. We would encourage businesses and residents to look after their own places and hopefully we can climb back up the ranks again next year. Thanks to all those who are helping maintain the cleanliness in their own areas of town.

We were delighted to retain our silver medal in the National Tidy Towns Annual Awards in the Helix, Dublin on 25th September. This is thanks to our fantastic team of volunteers who help keep our town clean and beautiful. Check out the Adjudicators report here. We will continue to work towards the Gold Award and appreciate any support from local volunteers, residents and businesses.

Thank you to all those who helped us achieve this Silver Award. We always need more volunteers so get in touch to see how you can help or please join us at one of our clean-ups. Thank you for the continued support from the community and local businesses. Everyone can help keep Wexford clean and beautiful!

Posted in Biodiversity, Cleanups, Tidy Towns Competition, Tidy Towns News

Wexford Tidy Towns Summer 2017

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Wexford Tidy Towns

The Wexford Tidy Towns volunteers and committee were out in force during the Summer months around our town. A huge amount of work was done and great results were achieved to keep Wexford clean and beautiful. We were out many times during June and July meeting regularly for our weekend Action Days where we focused on one area intensively and during weekday evenings on the Main Street and laneways of the town. Streets were swept, weeds were removed, painting was done, flowers were planted, hedges were cut, litter was picked and many more tasks were undertaken by our volunteers throughout the town. We always welcome new volunteers so please get in touch or come along to one of our clean-ups.

Well done to the residents of Trinity Street who we were delighted to meet with on the 4th July. We provided them with bags, litter pickers and gloves and they agreed to meet up every two weeks to keep the place just the way they like it. If you would like to arrange a similar clean-up of your own area we encourage residents to get in touch with us to see how we can help.

Thanks to Wexford Men’s Shed who made a new flower box to replace the broken one in Peter’s Square we were so happy with it. Thanks to Aldi and Lidl for their donation of plants throughout the Summer. The support to Tidy Towns is much appreciated and helps us flower up more areas of the town. We also had the Gum Litter launch by Wexford County Council in June to help encourage people to dispose of their gum responsibly and we have being distributing gum wraps to local businesses and people in Wexford.

It is great to see the Community Garden blooming this Summer which can be found on Hill Street between the Chamber of Commerce Offices and Redmond Park Wexford. Lots of herbs, lettuce, strawberries and other fruits, flowers and vegetables can be found in the garden with plans for fruit trees in the Autumn. Well done to all the groups whose hard work is helping this garden to grow with different local organisations minding different beds.

Wexford in Bloom was back delivering over 500 window boxes and baskets of colourful floral displays to businesses and residents in our town early in the Summer. Thanks to all those who took part in this great scheme and to the terrific hard work of the Wexford in Bloom committee who help brighten up our town for the community and visitors to the area, makes the town look fantastic.

Thanks for the continued support from the community and local businesses. We are always looking for more volunteers just get in touch or turn up at one of our clean-ups. Everyone can help keep Wexford clean and beautiful!

Posted in Biodiversity, Cleanups, Tidy Towns Competition, Tidy Towns News

Wexford Tidy Towns May 2017

Posted on May 28, 2017 by Wexford Tidy Towns

Wexford Tidy Towns are looking forward to a wonderful Summer in our town and started off the month of May with an open Tidy Towns meeting held on May 4th at Fusion Café for any of our current volunteers and anyone who wanted to join or was interested in finding out more about us. We got some great feedback and all your comments and suggestions were greatly appreciated, if we all put our heads together who knows what we will achieve.

During our Saturday Action Days in May we focused on several different areas of the town. We returned to St. Peter’s Square for a cleanup, paint and tidy of the lovely flowerbeds and boxes there and to tidy up the flowers around the fountain. Another day we spent on the lane ways of the town which were litter picked and swept clean by the wonderful volunteers.

This month also saw the return of the evening clean-ups during the week for the Summer months ahead, with the longer evening and better weather these will help keep the town looking good. On Wednesdays we met at 6pm in the Bullring and on Fridays we met outside A.I.B. at 6pm. We would be delighted to see you at these evening cleanups or at our regular Saturday mornings ones, everyone is always welcome.

We have also being out painting flower boxes around town and with the arrival of Wexford in Bloom’s baskets and boxes of flowers lining the streets of our town thanks to the local businesses and residents who participate in this wonderful annual scheme, we can see Wexford is looking ‘blooming’ wonderful!

On 20th May 11 of the Tidy Towns volunteers went to visit beautiful Skerries thanks to the Journal Journeys competition and Irish Rail scheme which gave free group train journeys. Skerries won the Tidy Towns competition in 2016, we met a lovely lady from their Tidy Towns committee there called Mary Conway and discussed the great work done by Tidy Towns and the benefits to the volunteers who take part too in these local Tidy Town groups around Ireland. Check out this article from thejournal.ie to see how we got on: ‘It’s not just about tidiness, it gives you a network and set of friends’

Some members of the committee were also invited to attend the I.C.A. monthly meeting so they could let us tell them what we do and what we need from organisations like themselves. They are very happy to come on board with Tidy Towns and we are always delighted to work with any organisation to keep Wexford clean and beautiful, just get in touch.

The National Tidy Towns Competition judging will start in June. We will be out every Saturday morning and during some weekday evenings. If you can’t make our cleanups you can also help by keeping outside your home/business litter free, painted and swept. Best of luck to all Tidy Town groups around Ireland for the 2017 competition. Thanks to our volunteers for their continued efforts and to the community of Wexford Town for their support. We look forward to the coming Summer months as we work together to keep our town clean and beautiful.

Posted in Biodiversity, Cleanups, Events, Tidy Towns Competition, Tidy Towns News

Wexford Tidy Towns April 2017

Posted on April 30, 2017 by Wexford Tidy Towns

We started off on the 1st April doing a great spring clean in the town with the use of new machinery including a sweeper, cigarette hoover and wheelie bin, delighted to have these to help us to keep Wexford clean and beautiful. On the 8th April 35 people (and 2 dogs!) turned out for the big Spring Clean at the Rocks, Maudlintown. We collected a stunning 80 bags of rubbish including lots of cans, 1 trolley, 2 fire extinguishers and 1 gas bomb among many other items. Thanks to the volunteers who joined us on the day and it was great to work with other local organisations in the area during this Action Day including St. Mary’s Maudlintown.

During the month of April several other projects were underway. Members of Wexford Tidy Towns identified places for new cigarette bins to go up outside premises in the town. A special thanks to Fun Palace on the quay who were very happy to have one outside their business and they also gave a €100 donation to Wexford Tidy Towns. We really appreciate it as we are a voluntary organisation and we will put the money to good use. Graffiti from Fettit’s Lane was removed and great work was done to paint this and other areas around our town in April.

One of our Action Days took place in the Carcur road area (although tremendous work was done by our volunteers) we were so disappointed to see so much dog fouling, including many dog fouling plastic bags used and then just thrown over the wall! Wexford works with MuttMitts Ireland so there is a plentiful supply of dog fouling bags in the many dispensers and bins around the town, please use them and dispose of them responsibly afterwards. We recommend you always carry plastic bags if you are bringing your dog for a walk. A quick visit to local shops shows there are plenty of inexpensive choices available to buy as well as the many MuttMitt bag dispensers around town. So, there are no excuses please clean up after your dogs.

We have had some reports of illegal dumping, we encourage the public who see any illegal dumping to please ring (053) 9196313 or email environment@wexfordcoco.ie.

Wexford in Bloom are also working hard on getting ready for the Summer months ahead of flowering up the town with the support of local businesses and residents. So keep an eye out for the flower baskets and boxes arriving next month.

Thank you for the continued support from the Wexford Town community and our wonderful volunteers. Please come and join us if you can at any of our regular clean-ups, we need all the volunteers we can get. We need to keep our silver medal and work towards getting the gold award, and we can’t do it without you.

Posted in Biodiversity, Cleanups, Events, Tidy Towns Competition, Tidy Towns News

Tidy Towns Conference 2017 – Westport

Posted on March 30, 2017 by Wexford Tidy Towns

Denis, Suzanne, Vicki and Phil attended the Westport’s Town Hall Theatre, County Mayo over the weekend, the First Tidy Towns Conference in ten years. Master of Ceremonies was telly celebrity and architect, Dermot Bannon. We got lots of tips on what the Adjudicators expect on their visit from the Adjudicators themselves. We heard from Billy Flynn on what makes a great Biodiversity project and so much more. And of course we also got to hear from Anne and Maeve from Skerries who were 2016 winners. We would like to thank all the lovely people from Westport for inviting us to their beautiful home place, for the great weekend and making us feel so welcome, hope to invite you all to Wexford in the near future.