Anger over state of Kells streets

The streets of Kells are filthy, according to local town council cathaoirleach, Brian Curran, who attacked the level of street cleaning in the town at Monday night's meeting of the council. "The streets are filthy, there are weeds growing on some of the streets, lamp standards are a disgrace and approach roads are a disgrace," he said. "It is no wonder we didn't enter the Tidy Towns competition. We didn't want to be embarrassed," he said. "People are not happy about street-cleaning in Kells. I have had numerous phone calls from people who are angry at the litter in the streets. One woman rang me and told me I should be ashamed as chairman to allow the streets get into that condition," he said. The town engineer, Shane Carroll, told Cllr Curran that the supplier who provided the lamp standards had agreed to repaint the standards free of charge. As regards street sweeping, he said they had a certain size of staff and a certain size of town and he could bring the rotas in to show the councillors what work was being carried out. "It is down to rescources and the amount of staff we have to do this work," said Mr Carroll. Cllr Tommy Grimes said that the town had got an awful lot bigger but the council has not had enough funds to employ additional staff. Cllr Curran stressed that he was not complaining about the outdoor staff in any way. Cllr Brian Collins pointed out that they hadn't criticesed the "dirty people" who created the litter. "These people have a ludicrous anti-Kells attitude. They must hate the town. Every time they throw litter around, they are taking money out of the pockets of the clubs or other organisations they belong to," he said. The area manager, Brendan McGrath, said there were five outdoor workers involved and they did a good job under trying circumstances. "If they are to do street cleaning full-time, there are other jobs they won't be able to do," he said. Cllr Sean Drew said it was up to the councillors to make a decision. "If the ratepayers are complaining, then we can make street-cleaning a priority and try to find the funding for it or cut back on something else," he said.