'Make your place a better place!'

That's the motto of the Tidy Districts initiative and we on the Green sub-committee hope to exploit the initiative as a vehicle for channelling all our efforts into making Leopardstown Heights a better place.

We will also be hoping to ignite greater community spirit and will be encouraging all our neighbours to join us in preparing the estate to make it the best it can be. The Green sub-committee is certainly fired up about this and greatly enthused by the energy and commitment also expressed by the teenagers of the estate towards this goal.

To this end we will

• Develop a 3-year plan for long term improvement initiatives

• Perform remedial work on the scourge of graffiti that only recently has become an issue in the estate

• Execute the annual Clean-Up Day with more vigour and determination and widespread involvement than we've ever seen before.

• Work with the wider committee and all our neighbours, young and old to support any initiative that enhances the existing community spirit we're so lucky to enjoy.

3-Year Development Plan

For the long-term development of our estate, we hope to instigate the creation and maintenance of a rolling 3-year development plan. This is to ensure that all initiatives are properly co-ordinated and planned and will result in a significant improvement in our estate's appearance, amenities and community spirit.

At the moment the subsection of such a plan that comes under the responsibility of the Green sub-committee consists of a wish list(in no particular order) of various ideas that may be included in the actual plan.

• Landscaping of Green

• Paved pathways through Green

• Seating

• Underplant tree copse with Spring bulbs

• Features at entrances to the estate

• Murphystown Rd. cul-de-sac landscaping

• Roundabout feature (eg. Sponsored by Racecourse)

• MUGA (Multi Use Games Area)

• Tennis Courts

• Play area for very young children

• Flower/Shrubbery beds

• Put Leopardstown emblem on rock at entrances, eg. Horse & jockey

• Rubbish Bins

• Fence off access to derelict site/unused site bordering northside of Green.

• Repair footpaths that have become uneven/cracked in places

Note: The scope of such a three-year plan needs to be integrated with all the LHRA sub-committees to ensure an integrated approach, as there are significant areas of overlap, the plan needs to be owned and approved by the whole committee.

Shorter-term Remedial Work

The following lists some of the on-going year round maintenance tasks of the Green sub-committee. We hope we can all put on a big push to get these addressed by Clean-Up Day, April 21^st.

• Litter clearance

• graffitti removal/prevention

• painting of communal walls

• Repainting ESB boxes

• Tidy Gorse areas, tree corpse

• Tree Pruning (dependent on DLRCC and probably won't happen before Clean-Up Day)

Long Term Planning

The major infrastructural components of the 3-year plan are done in close co-operation with the Council. They have prepared a landscaping and redesign of the Green. This was submitted to the whole committee for review, and updates fed back to the Council. This is planned to be executed on a phased basis, beginning with the footpaths through the Green.