Council meeting to hear fresh calls for return of former Longford urban local authority

According to Cllr Gerry Warnock, Longford town’s socio economic revival has “declined exponentially” since the redrawing of local government structures was introduced in 2014.

Cllr Warnock, who is scheduled to publicly call for the reintroduction of town councils at today’s (Wednesday) county council meeting, said the level of focus required to manage and progress larger urban areas is just not there at county council level.

“This is nothing to do with the willingness or capabilities within the County Council structure, it's simply about their capacity to deliver the consistent focus required to deal with issues pertaining to larger towns such as Longford,” he said.

The long serving local representative was a former member of the now obsolete town council format having succeeded his father, Christy, who stepped down in 2011.

The Independent councillor said while he accepted the countywide remit of a local authority like Longford, the added weight placed on larger urban centres epitomised by the likes of the county town simply has not materialised.

“I do argue that your larger urban areas need that extra level of focus as the varying issues pertaining to urban settlements both societal and economic far exceed those in rural areas,” he said.

“Currently this is not happening and only a restoration of a properly resourced and empowered urban authority for larger towns such as Longford, is the only way that can realistically turn the tide.”

Cllr Warnock has been a long time critic of the apparent dissolution of local authority powers to those in favour of a more centralised system.

Equally, the Longford town based councillor has in the past been highly critical of the council’s slow progress in delivering high level regeneration projects in the county town and feels that the absence of an urban focus at council level is part of the problem.

He said the council had effectively “missed a trick” by its decision to focus on lower-level projects throughout the county as opposed to more ambitious and larger-scale developments.

“I’m by no means leaving all this at the door of the local authority, but Longford has certainly declined in the last few years,” he said.

“Much of this can be attributed to the excesses of the building boom and the subsequent economic downturn but other issues are compounding this.

“Large parts of our town, particularly the northern end, are being ghettoised by dereliction and far too many low quality private rental residential units.

“I certainly don’t begrudge the county areas their successes, but one must ask the question that if we had a Town Council structure in place at the time that these funding schemes were made available, would we have squandered the opportunity? I’d confidently say we would not have.”