Waterford City & County Council wishes to advise that the Dungarvan Sports Centre will be closed for urgent maintenance purposes until further notice.
Waterford City & County Council regrets any inconvenience caused while the works are being completed.
Illegal dumping, and on a large scale, continues to increase in our wonderfully scenic county. Attached are pictures from last week where Council crews cleaned up large amounts of dumping from Moanyarha in the Nire Valley.
If you see illegal dumping, please report it on 0761 10 20 20.
As and from 1st July 2017, Killaree Lighting Services Ltd. will maintain the public lighting in the City and County of Waterford on behalf of Waterford City and County Council. Killaree Lighting Services won the contract previously held by Airtricity.
To report public lighting outages and/or faults please contact Killaree Lighting Systems at 056-7767410 or 056-7767385, or by email to klightings@gmail.com or fill in the fault form on their website.
What you need to include
Please include as much of the following information when reporting a fault:
Purple Flag is a Gold Standard accreditation recognising Waterford for being a safe, welcoming and friendly destination to socialise, live and work in.
Waterford was awarded the prestigious Purple Flag in February 2015 and it is international recognition of Waterford’s successful, well-managed city centre. It can be seen as the equivalent of the Blue Flag awarded to good beaches.
The Purple Flag award recognises excellence in the management of the evening and night-time economy and signifies the diverse range of offering available in Waterford after 5pm. Within Waterford’s compact and vibrant Purple Flag Zone you’ll find a diverse range of family entertainment, arts and culture venues, shopping, dining, pubs and nightclubs, accommodation and transport – something for everyone.
Waterford’s Purple Flag Zone stretches from Rice Bridge along the scenic River Suir Boardwalk to Reginald’s Tower (Ireland’s oldest civic urban structure). The zone includes the award-winning Viking Triangle and Waterford’s cultural and heritage quarter. The Zone continues along The Mall to John St and The Apple Market area; it incorporates Railway Square, the pedestrianised areas of Michael Street and John Roberts Square where it links in with Ballybricken. Via Georges Street, it includes O’Connell Street and links back out to The Quay at Hanover Street.
Contacts
Local Co-ordinator: nick.donnelly@waterfordchamber.ie
Chair of Working Group: ericobrien@rapidcabs.com
Administrator: mfitzsimons@waterfordcouncil.ie
Summer Stars is an exciting reading-based programme which is available free of charge to all children across the country.
The Summer Stars Reading Adventure will run from 30th June, during the summer in public libraries all over Ireland. Children are invited to register for the adventure and enjoy reading many books as part of the adventure during this time. All participants will be given a Summer Stars Reading Card to record and track their own progress.
Everyone is invited to check out the Summer Stars website at www.summerstars.ie which has lots of online games and activities as well as a range of animated ebooks. You will find a children’s books discussion board and interviews with well-known people about their favourite books. There are also helpful tips for reading and recommended titles by age group for children to read. The books can then be borrowed from your local library service. And it’s all free!
You can follow Summers Stars on Twitter: @StarsReading and on Facebook.
Public Participation in the Identification of Waterford Bathing Waters
CONSULTATION TYPE: SUBMISSIONS SOUGHT
CONSULTATION END DATE(S): 3rd AUGUST 2017
Local authorities must identify official bathing areas in their area every year so that they can be monitored for safety, water quality and their level of use. To help with this process, Waterford City and County Council are asking people who swim at beaches, lakes and rivers to tell them if they think they should maintain existing designated bathing waters designations or give a new official bathing area designation to areas that are commonly used for swimming, but not identified at the moment.
Under European and Irish law, Irish local authorities must identify bathing waters each year so that these areas can be monitored to ensure they meet stringent microbiological water quality standards. In some cases, the official bathing areas are also the areas where local authorities focus their resources providing lifeguards during the summer season. These laws also require that the local authority prepares detailed descriptions or profiles for each of the identified bathing water sites that describe not just the bathing area but also areas in the surface waters catchment area that could be a source of pollution. The profiles include an assessment the risk of pollution and what action would be taken if pollution occurs.
If you are a regular swimmer and want to help your Council decide which bathing areas should be classified as such, it might be helpful to consider the following:
If you wish to propose your favourite beach/river etc as a new bathing water site or comment on an existing site please contact bathing@waterfordcouncil.ie or phone 0761 10 20 20.
Closing date for submissions to Waterford City and County Council is 3rd August 2017. For further information please ring 0761 10 20 20.
By now everyone is aware of the Waterford Viking Marathon on the 24th of June, but maybe not everyone is aware of the extent of Council support offered to the event.
This year as many as 3,000 athletes will start on The Mall and the crowd will be one of the largest ever at the starting line!
For 2017 a completely new route was chosen for the Viking Marathon. By including some major landmarks and iconic structures in Waterford it was hoped to reach at least 3,000 registrations and deliver an enjoyable, safe and spectacular event for all.
Celtic Roads Group (CRG) are responsible for the operation and maintenance of the N25 Toll Bridge over the River Suir. This is currently the longest single span Bridge in Ireland (230m) which was opened in 2009 and is named after Thomas Francis Meagher.
CRG were approached with the idea of using this bridge as part of the route for 2017. They were enthusiastic from the start and once this was officially agreed the new route quickly took shape. The new Waterford Greenway could be used, Rice Bridge would be used and the WIT Area was an ideal location for the finish. It was important to continue to use The Mall as the start of the race and keep some familiarity to the race from previous years.
The next challenge was to find a route which could include the quarter, half and full marathon distances. Many days were spent tracing routes on maps and cycling sections to get the required route lengths. Also the Greenway was to be used, so the difficulty was getting from the N25 onto the Greenway.
The roadside embankment could not be removed so some sort of structure had to be designed to get over the embankment and onto the Greenway. This was a complex problem and one which would require careful design and approvals to be granted from Transport Infrastructure Ireland. There was also the issue of the Suir Valley railway which had to be crossed to get runners onto the footpath. After several weeks of negotiations a design was fixed on and the proposed structure was approved.
The next challenge faced was one of our own making.
Improvement works to the City centre would be ongoing through 2017 and finding a route through the City centre was not possible. This required some planning as traffic flow around the City still had to be maintained. We also still had to get the required route distances. Traffic management plans were drawn up by Council Technicians and reviewed and revised by Engineers and Gardaí.
The result is a loop around Parnell Street, Waterside and Catherine Street and back onto The Mall. Great for spectators, but very difficult when you have to get 3,000 participants across a 3 metre wide start line and keep half The Mall free for the fast runners to get to the Quay.
On the day of the Marathon, the roads section will start work at 4am. There will be a total of 34 staff on the day putting in place the traffic management along the route. There will be more than 2,500 cones used, as many as 800 barriers and at least 500 signs. Several Roads in and around the City will be closed on the day and diversions put in place.
There will also be staff from the Cleansing section of the Council assisting on the day with preparation works and the cleanup. Restrictions on traffic movements will be in place on roads adjacent to the route. The priority is to keep everyone safe and that the event is enjoyed by all. This will have an impact on traffic across the City on the day and all road users are asked to be patient. The runners will be showered and changed and most will be gone home before the roads crew finish dismantling the traffic management.
We wish best of luck to all competitors on the day – run well !
Managers of programmes from across all of Ireland met last week in City Hall Dublin to progress the great work that has be rolling out over the last 7 years in implementing strategies that will respond to the change in the ageing demographic that we are seeing in Ireland.
This global trend will present both challenges & opportunities and our local government led Age Friendly Programme, working collaboratively with all key stakeholders, is working to ensure that Ireland will be ready and prepared to respond to those needs and changes as they emerge.
There is currently a bathing prohibition order in place at Stradbally Cove due to the presence of bacteria in the water.
The bathing water quality is therefore poor and SWIMMING IN THIS WATER MAY CAUSE ILLNESS. This applies until further notice
Please be advised that there will be no property available under Choice Based Letting this week (Friday 16th June 2017).
Waterford City and County Council wishes to inform members of the public, that we will be moving our Motor Tax Services in the city from the Deanery building, Cathedral Square, around the corner to the Customer Services Centre at Bailey’s New Street, on Monday 19th June.
From Monday June 19th onwards, all Motor tax services will be available from Customer Services at Baileys New Street, opening at 9.30am – 4pm and now open through lunchtime.
Services in Dungarvan are unchanged.
Waterford’s Medieval Museum was recently featured on culture/travel recommendations aggregation site “Culture Trip” in the article “The Top Museums to Visit in Ireland”.
TEMPORARY CLOSURE
Waterford City & County Dog Shelter
Tuesday, 30th May 2017 PM
Please note that Waterford City & County Dog Shelter, Bilberry, Waterford will close at 1pm on Tuesday, 30th May, 2017. Will re-open Wednesday morning at 10am.
For enquiries during this time please:
Telephone 0761 10 20 20 or E-mail contact@waterfordcouncil.ie
Waterford City and County Council regret any inconvenience caused.
Got an Innovative Business Idea? 10 Point Investor Ready Checklist
Have you got an innovative business idea? If only you could get some help with the funding to get your business off the ground.
The LEO Innovation Investment Fund is a new investment fund of €1.5 million available through the network of 31 Local Enterprise Offices, targeting Investor Ready LEO Clients who wish to start, grow, or develop innovative Micro Enterprises.
Applicants will apply online and will be selected to participate on a short highly focused Investor Ready Programme incorporating 1 to 1 mentoring which will assist you prepare an investor ready plan. To help get you in the headspace, they’ve prepared this short 10-point Investor ready checklist:
What problem are you solving and are people going to pay?
You may have a great idea, but is it sustainable as a business? Would you be willing to pay for it? And how much would you be willing to pay? These questions will help you to know if your idea has the potential to become a business.
Is the idea scalable?
Investors love to put money into start-ups that are scalable. So, to become an Investible business, you will need to be able to demonstrate that your idea has sufficient room to grow.
What is your value proposition?
Your value proposition is a clear statement that explains how your product solves your customers’ problems or improves their situation. Consider well-known and effective examples such as “Low Fairs. Made Simple”, from Ryanair, and “Remember Everything”, from Evernote.
Do you have a business plan?
A business plan should be one of the first items on your to-do list for your new business. It’s the foundation upon which your success will be built, and contains the summary of what your business is, and how it’s going to grow. Preparing a business plan allows you to quickly work out some of the kinks and evolve to a more effective business model.
