Waterford Council is to host a summit to address issues affecting the Carrickphierish/Gracedieu area.
The meeting will be held in the public library within the next fortnight and will involve stakeholders such as residents, developers and public representatives.
Plans for more traveller accommodation in Carrickphierish has been causing concern to some residents in the area.
Speaking on Deise Today, FF Cllr Eamon Quinlan said the aim will be to put in place a works programme:
"What we need to put in is instead of Waterford Council periodically paying attention to halting sites, we probably need to have active management committees made up of members of the travelling community and Waterford Council for every single halting site across the city and county to manage all these issues when they are small to keep them small".
Cllr Quinlan says the area can be like the Dunmore Road:
"So that we can bring back both peace and stability for all the communities but also to drive on the Carrickphierish area for it to be what we always intended it to be - the new Dunmore road - and the quality of living for all residents should improve".
He said all contacts would now be contacted by all stakeholders in the next several days.
Cllr Quinlan also highlighted constant acts of arson in the area. He said
“this is a profoundly dangerous situation. The people setting these fires are risking lives, endangering homes, burning communal green areas, destroying local wildlife and spooking horses and other animals. On several occasions, the fires have caught the overgrown hedging and used this as a highway to burn directly up to people’s homes. If not for the fast actions of our fire service homes could have gone up in flames with family’s asleep inside”.
Raising the issue at a recent Council meeting, Cllr Quinlan said the executive agreed to liaise with the fire service and since then the Council has formulated a plan to help curb such dangerous anti-social behaviour.
"Starting with the site on the upper Gracedieu road, the Council will secure the entrances and various breaks in the partitioning wall by erecting new anti social behaviour fencing to stop all unauthorised trespassers. The Council will also deploy machinery to cut back and remove all hedging and overgrowth in abandoned fields that are too close to adjoining houses to stop any future fires from ‘making the leap’ onto people’s homes. It is hoped this will stop the reckless attempts at arson and allow the fire service to hold themselves in reserve for other emergencies".
