Councillors are calling on the Office of Public Works (OPW) to clarify what they'll do with a heap of rubble in a field just outside Bandon which has been dubbed the town's ‘new mountain.'
COUNCILLORS are calling on the Office of Public Works (OPW) to clarify what they’ll do with a heap of rubble in a field just outside Bandon which has been dubbed the town’s ‘new mountain.’
The rubble has been taken from the nearby Bandon river as part of the town’s flood relief scheme and has been classed as waste and which can’t be used for any other purpose.
Cllr Kevin Murphy (FG) raised the matter at a recent meeting of Bandon Kinsale Municipal District and said the debris being left across the road from the Bandon river is a disgrace.
‘We have to ask the OPW to find a location and shift it. Any ordinary person wouldn’t be able to leave a million tonnes behind. It’s an eyesore and a monster,’ said Cllr Murphy.
Cllr James O’Donovan (FG) said there was a lot of frustration in the local area about the rubble, which he described as ‘like a new mountain’.
He highlighted the fact that if a local farmer or contractor wanted to go about getting planning for a similar disposal landfill they would have to jump through several hoops before they could get it.
‘It could take two to three years to do this, but this was done in two or three months. If you’re pricing jobs in building the first thing you do is look at landfill and people are deterred from looking for planning for landfills,’ said Cllr O’Donovan.
He added that the rubble is classed as waste and has to be dumped.
Cllr Alan Coleman (Ind) said the environment section of Cork County Council have serious questions to answer about this, as they have been ‘overly zealous’ in the way they are treating every other application.
‘It’s next to impossible to get anything through our environment department in terms of getting a facility for soil or stone, yet a project of this scale can go through,’ said Cllr Coleman.
Cllr Rachel McCarthy (SF) said there was only one way the rubble has gone and that’s up and she said they should write to the OPW to see what their intentions are for it.
Cllr Gillian Coughlan (FF) said it seems like they didn’t have a plan beforehand to dispose of the waste.
However, she also said she was worried that heavy rain, frost and snow could have an impact on the heap which she feared could slide down into the road, creating serious danger.
‘I want the OPW to clarify to us what will become of that heap of material,’ she stated.
She added: ‘I agree with Cllr Coleman that there should be some element of recycling that could be envisaged for that earth, rather than it just being dead earth.’
