When Westport first won the Tidy Towns competition just after the turn of the century the win was greeted with huge celebration. Last Monday evening the news that the town had won the overall competition for the third time this decade, and for the second time in three years, was celebrated with as much gusto by all involved.
But Westport wasn’t the only Mayo winner on the night with the angling facility in Ballina picking up the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland architectural award and a prize of €1,000. Other Mayo award winners were Mulranny Tidy Towns committee in the notice of biodiversity award section for the western region and Melvins Financial Services in Ballina for the best shopfront in the western region, while Belmullet picked up the Mayo endeavour award in Mayo for their 279-point score, an improvement of 4.89 per cent on their score in 2007. The Murrisk area was also acknowledged for their work with a bronze medal in the category B section for towns with a population of between 201 and 1,000 and was being highly commended in the Mayo section along with Aughagower who were also commended.
Improvements for a number of towns
Aughagower picked up seven points on last year going up to 284 points this time. Other places to see an improvement in category A saw Clare Island who went from 255 points to 262 points. In category B of the competition Achill saw their marks improve from 194 in 2007 to 200 this year. Clogher also saw an improvement, going up five points from 232 to 237. But some bad news saw Mulranny, Newport and Louisburgh all record lower scores than they did last year in the competition. Four of the six towns who entered the category C competition all saw improvements, with Ballyhaunis, Belmullet, Charlestown-Bellaghy and Kiltimagh all gaining better scores, with only Swinford showing a slight drop.
In category D, Claremorris will be disappointed that they recorded a drop of four points on the tally they scored in 2007, while in the large towns both Castlebar and Ballina showed improvements of five and 11 points respectively, while Westport’s six- point improvement was enough to see them take the national crown.
