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[Press Release: October 24th, 2005] Labour and Fianna Fail need to explain why they have delayed recycling centre for Bray says de BurcaGreen Party councillor, Deirdre de Burca has called on Labour and Fianna Fail councillors on Bray Town Council to explain to the people of Bray why they have delayed in securing a recycling centre for Bray.The Green Party councillor, and Chairperson of Bray Town Council, says that when Wicklow County Council announced extra funding from Minister Dick Roche for a Bray recycling centre in September, they very quickly identified a suitable site off the Boghall Rd in Bray. "Councillors had zoned this site as suitable for a recycling centre in the new Bray Town Development Plan and so the Green Party supported it immediately. However, Cllr John Byrne of the Labour Party objected to the site and was supported in this by Cllr Pat Vance of the Fianna Fail Party. This meant that Wicklow County Council could not proceed with leasing the site they had identified for the recycling centre which would certainly have been up and running by Christmas". The Green councillor says that Cllr Pat Vance proposed an alternative site on the Boghall Rd to the Town Manager. "I felt it was unusual for a councillor to promote another commercial party but Cllr Vance promised to put the Town Manager in touch with the owners of the site he was proposing" says de Burca. "In the interests of pushing the issue forward and getting a site up and running by Christmas the Green Party councillors agreed to let the Town Manager negotiate with the owners of the new site, although all the same planning problems that other councillors were raising about the first site would have applied to the new site". Cllr de Burca says that the negotiations over the new site on the Boghall Rd immediately got bogged down in a disagreement about how much the council should pay for it, with the site owners looking for a sum that is well in excess of what the council had budgeted for. "The negotiations have stalled and it is now obvious that no recycling centre will be up and running in Bray by Christmas. This is an absolute disgrace. The people of Bray have been waiting over two years for a centre, and when one is eventually identified, questionable planning objections are put forward to stop the centre from being developed". The Green Party councillor says that the private company Greenstar has expressed an interest in developing a recycling centre in the town over the next few years. "I am beginning to wonder whether certain parties on Bray Town Council don’t want to see the local authority develop the recycling centre and want to delay as much as possible to suit Greenstar’s timetable. If this were true it would be totally unacceptable. However, I can see no other reasonable explanation for the incredible delays that have happened in both Bray and Greystones in relation to the provision of recycling centres in both towns".
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