New efforts being made to revive Navan Tidy Town group and improve on town's ‘moderately littered’ tag

A MAJOR campaign to clean up Navan and improve its standing in the National Tidy Towns Competition and the IBAL Litter League has begun.

As a new Navan Tidy Towns committee was formed in Navan last week, the chairman Josh Carroll and Mayor, Cllr Padraig Fitzsimons have urged the public to get behind the campaign.

Around 20 people met last week to revive the committee and they plan to contact various local residents groups, schools, football clubs and other organisations to seek their support.

"If everybody cleans up their own small area, we could have something amazing," said Mr Carroll.

The group also plans to contact Trim Tidy Towns Committee, previous winners of the National Tidy Towns competition for advice.

"We are also going to contact the Tidy Towns Group in Naas, which is a similar size town to use," Cllr Fitzsimons said.

Last week's meeting came following a pledge by local councillors to revive the committee in a bid to tackle the littering issue in the town.

Josh Carroll said: "We are aiming to make Navan cleaner. A town that is relying on the local authority to keep it clean, won't be clean, we are urging the public to get behind this campaign and we believe if everyone does their bit, we could gain very high points in the National Tidy Towns Competition."

Cllr Fitzsimons, who was elected treasurer, was pleased at the support they received from the public and from the local councillors. "It was very positive and there were a lot of good ideas.

"We will hold another meeting in September to elect the full officer board. We need the people of Navan to get behind this campaign and we hope to bring people together to work together and to instil pride in our town.

Cllr Emer Tóibín, the committee secretary, described last week's meeting of very positive and she was looking forward to seeing Navan move up the rankings in the litter league.

"There were some very good ideas and it is great to see more young people involved. We have another meeting planned for September, but I’m hoping we will be out on the streets cleaning up before then," she said.

The next meeting of the Navan Tidy Towns Committee will take place on Thursday 25th September in Navan Library at 7pm.

A previous campaign to clean up Navan began in 2019 when two separate Tidy Towns groups set up in the town within a fortnight, but the people behind both groups, Cllr Francis Deane and Madeleine Thornton agreed to work together to improve the town.

Over the years membership dwindled but both Cllr Deane and Ms Thornton are involved in the new committee.

At a recent meeting of Navan Municipal Council, councillors praised the incredible work of the council staff in keeping the streets of Navan clean, but expressed disappointment that while Navan had a modest improvement in their performance in the Irish Business Against Litter League, the town was deemed “moderately littered.” A number of heavily littered sites meant Navan again missed out on ‘clean’ status.

In January 2024, Navan had improved its standing in the Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) League moving up three places from the previous survey. Navan was deemed to be 'Clean to European Norms' finishing in 25th place in the survey of 40 towns around the country.

However just a year later there was a disappointing result for Navan with the town deemed to be "moderately littered" and finishing 32nd out of the 40 towns surveyed.

At the recent council meeting, members expressed concern at the way the streets can be littered very shortly after the council has cleaned it up and spoke of the need for local traders to get involved in the campaign.

Every year, provision of over €2m is made in the council's budget to cover litter management, street cleaning, and the monitoring and enforcement of the waste regulations.

Last year, the council also invested in new technology to detect, prosecute and deter illegal dumping and fly-tipping.

Regulations for the council to use drones, bodycams and covert CCTV cameras to tackle illegal dumping are now in force.