Source: https://www.tidytowns.ie/u_reports/2018/cork-west/2018-County-Cork_West-Skibbereen-693.pdf
“This has become a very strong category for your town with many high-quality projects being undertaken to reduce waste and sustainably use resources. The range of excellent projects under way in St Patricks Boys School which include planting the herb spiral, keeping chickens, growing organic fruit and vegetables, making compost, planting native trees and hosting workshops for West Cork primary educators is applauded. The excellent work of the new Gaelscoil, Abbeystrewry National School, St Josephs National School, the Skibbereen Community School and the Sustainable Skibbereen Group is similarly impressive and we urge them to keep these high-quality projects up. It is also recommended that consideration is given to entering some of these excellent projects into the tidy towns awards. However, like the adjudicator in 2017, we need to be conscious that the objective of these initiatives is to effect behaviour change in communities and it is necessary for us to quantify the impact that these initiatives are having. For example, how much produce comes from the Community Orchard? We note that your committee makes its own compost, harvests its own seeds, grows its own plants and captured rainwater for watering your planting schemes. These are all commendable actions and we wondered if you are now 100% self-sufficient and no longer require shop bought products like compost or plants? It is great that the walk to school schemes are taking place and we would like to know what proportion of students are participating and how frequently they are walking to school? The Incredible Edible Skibbereen initiative is wonderful and we wondered if it is possible to quantify how many locals are growing food and what impact it is having. Perhaps a survey could be undertaken of the participants to establish this? The zero waste Skibbereen group is a wonderful initiative and we encourage you to run follow-up events to monitor what it’s 90+ members are doing and the impact it is having on waste minimisation and sustainable resource use. Recording the results of all of the above actions and the other laudable initiatives set out in your application form will enable you to quantify the overall impact of all of this work and allow you to conclude more environmentally sustainable behaviour is taking place. We would appreciate updates on all these projects in 2019.”
Skibbereen Tidy Towns 