Mullingar has climbed nine places in this year’s Irish Businesses Against Litter (IBAL ) rankings - a “welcome improvement” for the town, according to the adjudicators, who are hoping the result “will spur the town to greater things”.
Mullingar has jumped from 38th place in January this year to 29th place on the list of 40 towns surveyed, and is now categorised as ‘Clean to European norms’ - its previous ranking was ‘Moderately Littered’.
The latest report found that over half the sites surveyed achieved the top litter grade. The judges also noted an improvement at the Canalside Walk, previously identified as the most littered site in Mullingar, but said it still has some way to go to become a top ranking site.
Normally a top ranking site, the exterior of Mullingar Railway Station was home to “a wide variety of litter along the approach to the station, some litter was in bags and some loosely thrown” according to the report.
However the interior of the railway station was “immaculate” and “gleaming”.
The park beside Grand Parade was described as “a lovely amenity which has been well maintained”, while Mount Street also made the top litter grade, in spite of road works at the time of inspection.
Pearse Street was found to be “a somewhat littered street with heavy levels of cigarette butts and chewing gum along with lower levels of fast-food wrappers and sweet papers”.
There were positive comments for all of the approach roads examined, including the R390 Athlone approach road, N52 Dundalk road, and N4 Dublin-Sligo road.
This latest IBAL survey showed improvements in all Midlands town monitored, with Tullamore in sixth spot nationally and Athlone in 12th - both ‘Cleaner than European norms’ - and Portlaoise in 28th position.
