A GROUP of teenagers trashed a green area adjacent to Broadstrand after a night of partying at the beach.
Courtmacsherry woman Gertie Hayes said she was out walking when she saw a lot of rubbish – cans and bottles and general refuse – scattered everywhere on the green.
She interrupted her evening walk to fetch gloves and rubbish bags and, on her return, met one of the teenage boys, who had attended the party, working with his parents to clear the site.
The teenager said he had taken his own rubbish home the morning after the party and both he and his mother were dismayed to see the state in which the wild campsite had been left. The four worked together to collect four bags of refuse and the family brought this home to dispose of it correctly. ‘I have no problem with teenagers setting up camp for the night and having a party,’ Gertie, wife of Independent Cllr Paul Hayes, told The Southern Star.
‘If I’m honest I’d be a bit jealous, so I have no issues with parties!’
‘It is good to see young people enjoying themselves, meeting up, having a laugh, having fun.
‘They were no trouble whatsoever. There wasn’t a peep out of them for the night, but I was appalled by the state they left it in.
‘It’s my understanding that more turned up than was expected,’ she added, ‘but some were local.’
She said anyone who goes wild camping knows they should ‘leave no trace,’ and that they should ‘pick up their stuff and make sure the place is clean when they
leave.’
