Moynalty takes top Tidy Towns honours for 14th year

The annual Tidy Towns results have seen improved marks for all 16 entrants from Meath this year, with Moynalty once again winning the overall county prize and retaining its gold medal. The attractive north Meath village managed to gain an extra mark despite all the works that were ongoing in the village over the summer on the village's new sewerage scheme and other services. It is the 14th year in a row that Moynalty has won the title of Meath's tidiest town. Trim gained an extra two marks, finishing in second place and also retained its bronze medal. One of the biggest improvements in this year's competition was Slane, which gained 14 marks, and finished third in Meath, while Batterstown earned an extra 12 marks to finish fourth. All entrants in Meath managed to improve their score this year with Navan also doing well to gain an extra 10 marks. Oldcastle brought its score up by 20 marks. Moynalty Tidy Towns committee chairperson Peter Rogers said the local TT group was delighted they got to hold onto their gold medal and gain an extra mark or two given all the work that was going on in the village. He said they were hoping to win the tidiest village title next year when the new footpaths are in place, electricity and telephone cables are underground, new street lighting is in place and the street is resurfaced. The 25-strong committee attended the awards ceremony in Dublin and Mr Rogers said they believe they did very well against stiff competition from 720 entries. Moynalty finished just four points behind overall national winner Emly, Co Tipperary. "We would like to thank county manager Tom Dowling and Meath County Council for all their help putting the cables underground, Meath Partnership, the FAS workers, the Social Rural Scheme and all the people in Moynalty. We have about 50-60 volunteers and we even have people from outside the parish who help and we thank them as well," said Mr Rogers. Trim Tidy Town committee chairperson Brian Heffernan said their report had been very positive but one area they had fallen down on was the approach roads. He said they had gained two points but the Ballivor, Longwood and Kildalkey approach roads had let them down as well as the ring road. Mr Heffernan said they would be concentrating on these roads next year and said they had to prioritise litter picking due to council cutbacks at the weekends and they were not able to spend time on these road. However, Mr Heffernan said Trim was only one mark off getting a silver medal and six off receiving a gold. The town also won the Midlands-East Regional 'Notice nature biodiversity award' which was mainly due to a wildlife booklet produced by Paddy Rispin and St Mary's Primary School. "We came second in Meath to Moynalty and hope to be getting up to challenge the likes of Moynalty in the near future. We did a lot of work over the summer and we have a lot more to do, but we are going in the right direction," he said. Slane went from sixth place in Meath last year to third this year with a gain of 14 marks. Tidy Town secretary Ann Griffin said they were delighted with this result and were happy they had done well on the general tidiness and approach roads. The flowers were not planted until after the Slane concert and the judging had taken place before then. "We were very happy with the report but there are one or two things we have to pull up on. We're hoping to do even better next year, which is the 250th anniversary of the village," she said. St Patrick's NS in Slane won the regional school award for the Midland-East region and Mrs Griffin said they were also very happy about that.