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[Press Release: September 30th, 2005] Greens call on officials to give proper advance warningBurrell claims that it is time for officials to start properly communicating with the public when it comes to informing them of up and coming major road or water works being carried out in the county. The Green Party Councillor on Bray Town Council has called on Bray Town Council and Wicklow Co. Council to provide enough advanced warning to the public, throughout all the local media, when these works are being carried out."We have had an appalling situation over the last month where the public were not fully informed as to when water works which would affect more than half the county were going to be carried out. We were given a date from Dublin City Council at our first Bray Town Council Meeting in September. I felt it was my duty to tell the public this was happening but unfortunately this date was cancelled and another given. This next date was also cancelled and subsequently a third date was given. It seems to me that we have a situation where the "left-hand doesn't seem to know what the right-hand is doing"! I would have thought all Councils would have a set schedule of works for the year and carry them out," said Cllr. Burrell. In this case the public were informed by ads placed in national newspapers and only in one local paper, which meant unless people bought a paper, they would not have known these works were to take place. The local free paper that goes into every household in the county did not have an ad placed in it at all! The local radio station - East Coast Radio - was only given the information on the Monday morning before works were to take place on the Tuesday morning. Fortunately because Cllr. Burrell had already informed the station, they were able to broadcast the information over the weekend before the works were to take place. "I received numerous calls from the public telling me that they knew nothing about the water works and were checking with me as to a definite date. They told me that they had been in touch with Wicklow Co. Council who appeared to know nothing about them. This situation must not be allowed to happen again", stated Cllr. Burrell. "The new Local Government Act of 2001 was to help provide a better public service and this has certainly not been the case in this situation! For any future major works being carried out, the public should be informed at least a week or more in advance throughout all local media so that households, businesses and schools can make adequate arrangements".
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