Green Party councillors on Bray Town Council have called for a “fair rent” for the use of Bray Seafront to be included in the council’s 2007 Budget. The Budget is likely to be adopted by councillors at Tuesday night’s meeting of Bray Town Council.

The Green Party councillors say that the use of Bray Esplanade for amusements every summer as part of the Bray Summerfest is an opportunity for Bray Town Council to raise some badly-needed revenue for the town which could be spent on sports and recreational facilities for young people. They point out that Bray Seafront is a very valuable commercial space and that any company operating amusements on the seafront for the three weeks of the Summerfest is likely to make quite significant profits.

“In our opinion the Town Council needs to start treating Bray seafront as the very valuable public asset that it is” says Green Party councillor, Deirdre de Burca. “It is crazy that we have handed this public asset over to a private operator during the Bray Summerfest over the past few years to do very good business without some expectation that a small percentage of the profits raised would come back to the town and benefit the people of the town. We have very worthy local sporting groups who have approached the council this year looking for basic funding and we have warned them that the money may just not be there to give them. If we managed our public assets a little better, we would have funds to give these groups” .

Green Party councillor, Ciaran o Brien says that it is established practice in other local authority areas to look for a fair rent for the use of public space or public assets. “For example in our neighbouring local authority- Dunlaoghaire Rathdown County Council – a charge of 1,500 euros per day is paid to the council for the use of Kilgobbet Park for a fun-fair” says Cllr o Brien.. “Kilgobbet Park is not half as valuable a location as Bray Seafront. It seems crazy that Bray Town Council has not to date put the use of the seafront during the Summerfest out to tender, or looked for a fair rent for its use over a three week period. The Green Party is suggesting that the council becomes a little more business-like in the way it manages its assets on behalf of the public”.

Green Party councillor, Caroline Burrell, says that Bray Town Council has been quite generous to the organisers of the St Patrick Day’s Festival and the Bray Summerfest over the past few years. “As councillors we very much appreciate how important these events are for the town and we see them provide a lot of enjoyment for the people of the town” she says. “However, we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that the same commercial operator who used the seafront rent-free for his amusements this summer pays 10,000 euros a day to the RDS in commercial rent for the same. Bray Town Council needs to manage the use of the seafront for commercial purposes in a way that channels some of the benefits back to community groups who are very badly in need of funding. The Green Party’s support for this year’s Budget will depend on a fair rent for the use of the seafront being included in the Budget”.