‘Buncrana is not a dirty town’

Buncrana Tidy Towns Initiative has hit out at a litter survey which has described the town as “moderately littered”.

Buncrana was named Donegal's tidiest town at last year’s SuperValu Tidy Towns Awards, beating Letterkenny to the title by a point.

But the latest Irish Business Against Litter (Ibal) survey has ranked the town  27th out of 40 towns and cities surveyed and has downgraded the town from clean.

The survey’s report, carried out by An Taisce, highlighted dog-fouling and food-related littering as problems in parts of the town. 

Gerard Porter, chair of Buncrana Tidy Towns Initiative, hit out at the report describing it as “unfair”. He said the report was based on a lunchtime inspection in April and involved “nitpicking”.

“The message I would want to go out, is that Buncrana Tidy Towns has won eight gold medals (in the Tidy Towns competition) in the last eight years,” he said.

“We are in the top 50 towns in the whole of Ireland and we are top in the county. So Buncrana is not a dirty town. It speaks for itself. You don’t get a gold medal in the national tidy towns competition if you are moderately littered.”

Describing the town as “spotless”, he said the Tidy Towns initiative was “taken aback” by the Ibal ranking.  

“Ibal does not carry any weight with us from a Tidy Towns focus. We do not take that as the holy grail. The holy grail is the  SuperValu Tidy Towns competition.”