South Longford town hails success of poster free election

A well established feature of every local and general election is the proliferation of posters by candidates in the run-up to polling day.

However, in South Longford, there was a pushback in the run up to the recent Local and European Elections.
Ballymahon Tidy Towns Committee requested each candidate in the elections to refrain from putting up posters in the town.
The initiative worked well, as Vice-Chairperson of the committee, Derek Healy, told the Leader.

“Our Secretary, David McGrane, emailed each candidate and asked them not to put up any posters in our town. That included entrances to the town,” he explained.
“There were no issues with our request and all candidates complied,” he added.

The thinking behind the initiative was two fold. “It was for aesthetic reasons and also to reduce waste,” Derek explained.
“It was refreshing that people were not bombarded with posters in the town,” he stated.
“Our secretary, David, had the onerous task of emailing the candidates. The candidates did not have to comply with our request, but they all did,” he explained.

The Ballymahon Tidy Towns Committee is chaired by Liam Natton, who Derek describes as a “stalwart” of the committee.
Derek and his fellow committee members want to keep the initiative going for the forthcoming General Election.
“We will be taking the same approach for the General Election. The bottom line is that this works,” Derek commented.