Archive for July, 2014

Downe A&E cuts announced by South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust

Published
by
Cadogan
on July 25, 2014
in 3. PRESS RELEASES AND NEWS, Downpatrick and Health / Local Services
. Closed

ASDFG

Enright Slams Trust For Cutting Downe A&E Hours

Councillor Enright got versions of the letter below into the Irish news, Newsletter, Mourne Observer, Down Recorder and Down News. (click here)
Sir,

re: Downe A&E cuts announced by South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust

2014 has opened with widespread anger around Downpatrick and District at the sudden announcement by the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust that they are experiencing a critical shortage of medical staff in both the Downe and Lagan Valley Emergency Departments and were thus forced to cut back on weekend working. This leaves local doctors operating an ‘Out of Hours’ at weekends and night-time at the Downe on their own.

The Monday before Christmas I attended a 3 1/2 hour emergency meeting between the Trust and local elected representatives at the Down Civic Centre  in the Downshire Estate on the Ardglass Road to demand answers on why Accident and Emergency services were being cut at weekends with suggestions that we travel to the Ulster hospital instead.

We were able to extract a promise from Trust management that when sufficient staff had been recruited, normal service would resume. The Trust also promised to brief us on progress towards this goal.

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Suspicions exist that Lisburn and Downpatrick are being sacrificed to enable the Ulster to build up its numbers to resist being culled when the realization hits that we don’t need four major hospitals in Belfast. 45% of admissions to the Ulster are already from Belfast. Real people live beyond Carryduff.

The inability to recruit and retain middle-grade doctors to work in A&E points to poor planning and raises issues about the competency of Health Service management over a 15 year period since this problem has become widely acknowledged.  Solutions should have been found long ago.

At a time of huge graduate unemployment and emigration only 250 doctors are being trained every year in the North. Of these 100 are overseas students who will return home, and an average of 50 are emigrating annually on graduation.

You don’t need to be a brain surgeon to figure out that we should have been training at least 100 more per annum for many years, and that Trusts ought to be allowed to sponsor students who agree to work in scarce specialities for a number of years after graduating.

Roads infrastructure in South Down is very different compared to Lisburn or the Ulster which are minutes away from a selection of A&E hospitals in Belfast, Craigavon and Antrim. Some parts of Down District would require travelling 40 miles to the Ulster Hospital A&E or Daisy Hill in Newry. This is just unacceptable. Several local people described to me how that they would have died had they not been treated at Downe A&E over the last few years.

A solution must be found soon.

Yours,

Cllr Cadogan Enright

Downpatrick

 

COUNCILLOR ENRIGHT COLLECTS THOUSANDS OF LOCAL SIGNATURES FOR A&E CAMPAIGN

Published
by
Cadogan
on July 24, 2014
in 4. PRESS CUTTINGS, Ballyhornan, Ballynahinch/Spa, Castlewellan, Chapeltown, Downpatrick, Health / Local Services, Kilclief and Ballyculter, Killough and Coney Island, Raholp and Saul and Strangford Village and Lough
. Closed
Cadogan Enright collects signatures at local Rugby club for Hospital accident and emergency department's return.

Cadogan Enright collects signatures at local Rugby club for Hospital accident and emergency department’s return.

In addition to the 2600 signatures he collected in Saul, Raholp, Strangford, Kilcleif, Ballyhornan, Chapeltown and Killough, Cadogan Enright collects more signatures at Ballynahinch Rugby Club to prevent the closure of the A&E department in the Downe Hospital. Many sporting clubs agreed that the Accident and Emergency service was essential. Cllr Enright collected signatures at Dunleath park, Ballynahinch Rugby club and sent petitions to over 50 GAA clubs in the surrounding area.

Extremely constructive talks on modern energy storage project

Published
by
Cadogan
on July 24, 2014
in 4. PRESS CUTTINGS, Ardglass, Ballyhornan, Climate Change/Flooding, Energy, Farming / Agriculture and Renewable Energy
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Leading energy storage project discussed between Cllr Enright, Environmental minister Durkan and leaders of the Ulster Farmers union and DDFFRE.

Leading energy storage project discussed between Cllr Enright, Environmental minister Durkan and leaders of the Ulster Farmers union and DDFFRE.

 

Ground-breaking energy storage project discussed in extremely productive talks with Environmental minister Durkan. Councillor Enright led a delegation of leaders of the Ulster Farmers union and local Down farmers organisation DDFFRE. The scheme would be the first of its type in the UK and Ireland and is slated to be based at the old airdrome in Ballyhornan and serving Ardglass and other Lecale villages with renewable energy.

Minister promised to make an on-site tour in July

Grant given to local Energy storage scheme

Published
by
Cadogan
on July 24, 2014
in 4. PRESS CUTTINGS, Ardglass, Ballyhornan, Climate Change/Flooding, Energy, Farming / Agriculture and Renewable Energy
. Closed
DDFFRE and David Surplus from B9 meet with Cllr Cadogan Enright over a new energy storage project fund worth up to a possible £450,000 for the Lecale area.

DDFFRE and David Surplus from B9 meet with Cllr Cadogan Enright over a new energy storage project fund worth up to a possible £450,000 for the Lecale area.

Councillor Enright organised a joint funding application between energy company B9 representative David Surplus and the local farmers co-operative Down District Farmers for renewable energy. The grant is aimed at creating a ‘micro-grid’ in the Lecale area which will enable farmers to connect to the national grid without the massive charges they currently face of up to £450,000 for a connection. This will make the Lecale area the first project of its kind in Britain and Ireland.

Coney Island affected by Porky pies

Published
by
Cadogan
on July 24, 2014
in 4. PRESS CUTTINGS, Ardglass, Climate Change/Flooding, Council, Housing, Killough and Coney Island and Roads Congestion in Downpatrick
. Closed

CONEY ISLAND RESIDENTS OUTRAGED BY ROAD SERVICE CLAIMS

Local residents were outraged when they read this article suggesting they had not been abandoned without sandbags by the road service.

Local residents were outraged when they read this article suggesting they had not been abandoned without sandbags by the road service.

Local residents were outraged when they read this article suggesting they had not been abandoned without sandbags by the road service. Councillor Enright has organised a meeting between council and road service to ensure that one of the two will take responsibility for Coney Island in future flooding situations.

CAMPAIGN TO GET LECALE’s BEACHES RECOGNISED UNDER THE EU BATHING WATERS DIRECTIVE

Published
by
Cadogan Enright
on July 11, 2014
in Uncategorized
. Closed

There are a series of documents linked to the page below that you will find useful in getting your beach nominated as an ‘EU Bathing Water’. I have created this information-resource base to help local community associations in villages around Lecale get their local beaches recognised as ‘EU Bathing Waters’. These villages include

  1. Strangford (Strangford Community Association) Kilclief Beach
  2. Kilclief (Kilclief Residents Association and residents along Killard) Kilclief Beach and Killard Beach
  3. Ballyhornan (Ballyhornan Community Development Association) Ballyhornan Beach
  4. Ardglass (Ardglass Development Association and residents from nearby Chapeltown) Ardglass Spa, Ardglass Beach and Our Ladys  Well
  5. Coney Island (Coney Island Residents Association) Coney Island Beach
  6. The Lecale Conservation Society (amongst its wide variety of actions – maintains and protects Minerstown Beach)
  7. Killough Residents Associations (inc. Fishermans Row, Seaview/Westpoint and Church View)  Killough Beach and St. Helena’s Beach

We are all very grateful to the Ardglass Development Association who have fundraised several hundred pounds to get this project up and running.

OBJECTIVES – Main objectives to this campaign

  1. To improve the tourist potential of our villages and all of Lecale
  2. To bring legal pressure on NIWater to end the discharge of sewerage on or near our beaches.
  3. To have a Sewerage Systems similar to that in North Down as was originally proposed for Ardtole in Ardglass back in 2007. This project was downgraded in 2013 partly because none of our local beaches were recognised as ‘EU Bathing Waters’. We aim to return to the original plan of having all sewerage from local villages pumped to Ardtole for the same top-class treatment as in North Down
  4. To create a safe bathing environment for ourselves and our children.

Shared Information Base

(if you find other relevant info email cadogan@enright.ie to include it below)

I have inserted key pieces of information below to support the separate campaigns running on each of our local beaches;

  1. Why were our beaches not successful in the 2011 NIEA consultation? 

    1. Firstly because both Down Council and the NIEA failed to nominate Kilclief, Killard, Chapeltown, and beaches around Ardglass and Killough
    2. Secondly the NIEA did nominate Rossglass, Minerstown and Ballyhornan but claimed that there was insufficient evidence of use to support the designation.   (see 2011  list of nominated beaches and clearly incorrect stats for these 3 nominated beaches HERE)

  2. What are the rules for nominating a beach?

    1. We don’t need the NIEA or Council to do this for us, we can do it ourselves. The most important aspect is proving traditional and ongoing use – hence our use of Facebook to collect evidence in each local village for every beach
    2. I have captured the rules for nominating your beach as a ‘candidate beach’ HERE  and HERE
    3. The next opportunity to have our beaches nominated is now approaching – we need to apply.

  3. Why does Down Council have to help us?

    1. Because I got cross-party support for my motion to provide council help in having our beaches nominated as ‘EU Bathing Waters’
    2. The details of the motion and debate are HERE. As of July 2014 Council Management have done nothing – so local communities will have to ‘hold Council’s hand’ and help them make the right moves, as pro-active environmental campaigning is not a strong point in Down Council.

  4. Who do we approach, and how does it work?

    1. See HERE for a short summary document about how the process works

  5. What is the latest information we have from the Department?

    1. see HERE for the most useful of the ‘Freedom of Information’ replies I received.

  6. What sort of questions did you ask the Department?

    1. It took a while to discover from NI Water that their down-grade of the Ardglass Sewerage Project was partly triggered by the NIEA’s failure to identify any ‘Bathing Waters’ in Lecale – despite our villages and beaches being one of the North’s best Tourist attractions. See HERE for email chain trying to ask all the relevant questions to the NIEA;

  7. HERE is the full 2011 NIEA consultation document that identified ALL beaches on the ‘Gold Coast’ as ‘bathing waters’ but failed to to identify any of our beaches except Tyrella

  8. Compare the GOLD COAST with the LECALE COAST for sewerage treatment HERE