Meathwoman's Diary: Making Bettystown Great Again

The long awaited €8m library and civic centre in Bettystown will open later this month. The 700sqm library located in a landmark building with views to the sea and a major community meeting space overlooking a new plaza in the centre of the village will bring a library service back to East Meath for the first time since the mid 2000’s. While most are agreed that the opening will be a momentous occasion for the seaside town, it will be against a back drop of controversy, one the area has become used to in recent years.

Bettystown prided itself on being a thriving seaside town and a magnet for holiday makers but it has lost its mojo over the past couple of decades due to population increase with no resources to support it, a lack of investment, bad planning and an economic down turn. Trends have also changed in how people holiday it has to be said. But there is a commitment there to turn things around.

There was celebrations last year when Bettystown Beach was awarded its first Blue Flag in almost 30 years. It came two years after cars were permanently banned from parking on the beach and a short time after dogs were prohibited from a section of the beach, both moves getting a very mixed public reaction. The removal of cars has been championed by local Fine Gael Cllr Sharon Tolan whereas other local representatives have been vocal about their concerns that it is driving people away from the coastal town and putting businesses there in jeopardy due to a lack of alternative parking.

At a recent Laytown/Bettystown Municipal District Meeting Independent Cllr Carol Lennon asked Meath County Council what provisions were in place to accommodate visitors and staff attending the new civic building. The local authority responded by saying that a report carried out in the planning stages found that "no additional parking was required" and that the existing parking in the town was deemed satisfactory to service the building.

"We have a whole community of people saying, how will we get into the library. There might be all these great changing areas and fantastic sensory rooms but if there's no parking, it's not accessible.

"Businesses are reporting shortfalls in footfall of up to 70 per cent in some instances and we need an active response," said Lennon.

Further up the coast at Mornington dunes a visitor Access and Conservation Management Plan is being created by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS). However in the meantime the special area of conservation is being destroyed by beach revellers camping and starting fires and littering along with sports clubs training on the site.

To counteract this, Bettystown Tidy Towns hopes to start an initiative whereby people can donate used Christmas trees to be placed in a trench at the dunes to combat coastal erosion. The idea is that as the wind blows the branches of the trees trap sand creating new dunes, a plan that has seen success in other locations.

It might be a case of the scales having to tip before they can balance but the potential is there to make Bettystown great again.