An historic first for Longford Town

A significant milestone was reached this last year by Longford Town when it won its first ever silver award in the National Tidy Towns competition. An increase of 12 points over the previous year was achieved and there was a marked improvement in each of the 8 categories under which we were judged. There certainly was a great reason to celebrate.
The award was announced in Croke Park in October and was the result of many years of effort, hard work, planning, and co-operation between our Tidy Towns volunteers, community groups, schools, colleges, C.E. schemes, Longford Co. Co., private home owners, housing estates , local businesses, the Longford Mens’ Shed and many individuals working diligently on their own, each week.

The two judges for this competition arrived in mid-summer last year and some of their comments this year included – “a stunning building, Temperance Hall fabulous, sash windows repaired nicely, Georgian buildings beautiful, a lovely facade, Paint Longford Proud initiative is very commendable, Longford Town is undergoing a very positive transformation in recent times”
Unfortunately a few negative comments included reference to Great Water Street and dereliction and Killashee Street with so many vacant, unkept and rundown buildings. However, there were complements for the beautiful “new builds” on Killashee Street and many other housing estates as well.

We were reminded by the judges about sustainability and the need to ‘do more with less, refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, re-purpose, repair, re-invent’ .
Tidy Towns are about much more than litter picking. It’s about projects relating to nature, biodiversity, sustainability, water quality and the importance of our trees in relation to climate change. With all those things in mind Longford Tidy Towns hope to place emphasis this year on encouraging and helping to get more suitable trees growing in some of our local residential estates and to take an active interest in improving the water quality in our locality.

We always welcome new helpers with new ideas. Photos and information can be found on our Face Book Page or you can make contact with us through a volunteer in your area. By getting involved and working together we can all be really proud of Longford and at the same time hope for silver again this year.