Town would benefit from allotments says councillor
Related Articles
Wednesday March 10 2010
LISTOWEL is a ' concrete town' that would benefit immeasurably from the introduction of public allotments for the growing of fruit and vegetables, town councillor Jackie Barrett told colleagues recently.
Listowel Town Council — like every authority in the country are obliged to provide allotments if demand is shown — continued to debate the possibility of individual plots for the use of locals interested in cultivating food for the table.
"Listowel is turning into a concrete town like many other towns and I just feel that there are local authorities up country with this in operation and I would like to see it considered for Listowel, where you would have interest there," Cllr Barrett said.
She proposed that 'Listowel Town Council would consider the introduction of allotments in Listowel.'
Cllr Tim O'Leary described his Fine Gael colleague's proposal as 'excellent', and said that the Listowel Family Resource Centre of which he is chair had identified a little plot of land for use as a 'kitchen garden'. Cllr Denis Stack reminded the assembly that numerous allotments were in use in Listowel over 45 years ago. "But it's all covered up with concrete now."
Sinn Féin Cllr Anthony Curtin, however, pointed to the fact that the town council has no plot of its own to develop as a market garden currently, but agreed it would be great to see allotments established in town. He suggested that the council wait to see how a plans by local horticulturist Joe Guerin for his private land would progress.
Mr Guerin currently has an application before the council to develop a series of allotments in the Scartlea area and Cllr Curtin said that the response to his development, if given the go-ahead, would give the town authority a good idea of the demand for it.
Cllr Maria Gorman pointed to the market garden cultivated in Duagh under Fr Pat Moore, describing it as 'superb' and suggesting its application in Listowel would be of much benefit to the town.
