By Pat Kelly.

Spring is in the air!. Daffodils are appearing, the birds are tweeting and covid pandemic is almost at bay. This signals the start of The Tidy Towns committee work programme for 2022 with our dedicated team of volunteers cleaning, tidying up, planting shrubs and litter picking. Your support in our many endeavors in Keeping Lusk Tidy is very much appreciated. Lusk is ever changing and growing at a rapid pace due to the various housing developments and expanding population. Lusk Tidy Town Committee has produced many cards and verses by local residents over 30 years and with the popularity of these cards we are producing a book for the Tidy Towns Archives reflecting on a changing Lusk. Thanking you for your continued support and Happy St Patricks Day from Lusk Tidy Towns Committee.

The second phase of meetings for the Fingal Development Plan has took place this January/February for the new Plan 2023 – 2029. Councillors signed off on the new Draft Plan and had the opportunity to submit motions to change the future growth of the towns in Fingal. In the Lusk context Cllr O’Donoghue says he was able to resist attempts by Councillors from outside of the Rush-Lusk Electoral Area who proposed a motion which sought to develop the usage of the lands around the Rush-Lusk train station. Speaking at the meeting Councillor O’Donoghue railed against the whittling away of the green space between Rush and Lusk, ensuing traffic chaos and the potential delivery of unsustainable development proposed by Councillors from outside the area at the location and that passing the motion would be tantamount ‘to changing Rush and Lusk forever and a hell of a legacy to bequeath the towns of Rush and Lusk.’He continued, ‘the Draft Plan will be out for public consultation from the end February until May 2022. This will be the final public consultation and the last chance that people from Lusk will have to get their voices heard. I would urge anyone who has an interest in the future development of the town to make a submission on the new Draft Plan.” In other Council news, the annual Programme of Works will be announced later this month with Cllr O’Donoghue looking for improvements in drainage in Ministers Road area, resurfacing of roads in Lusk, including the R132 and the fixing of footpath infrastructure in the Treen Hill area among other works.

We look forward to our 2nd AGM on Monday 7th March. This will be open to the community as we are looking for new LAG committee members. If you have drive, enthusiasm, care about the future of our town and have some time to spare, please consider joining us. You can email us on luskactiongroup@gmail.com or contact us on 0863017842 for details. There is currently a public consultation open for the Fingal County Council draft development plan. We urge the community to engage with this process. We cannot stress the importance of this enough. These are the plans that shape the future of our town until 2029, and this is our opportunity to ensure that it looks how we would like it to look, especially considering housing development and land zoning. See consult.fingal.ie or get in touch with FCC on 01 8905000. In February, we had the first of the Lusk Vision 2030 Implementation meetings. We look forward to our continued involvement with the committee and to beginning to bring to fruition the comprehensive 2030 plan. This is reliant on the time, enthusiasm and talent of many people involved in many different clubs and committees in Lusk. It is also reliant on the support and involvement of our local councillors, TD’s and senator. And we would like to thank them for their support to date. Siobhan O’Connor is looking for volunteers for Junior Park Run weekly event in the Hub on Sunday mornings at 9.30am. Event is a free 2k walk/run for children ages 4-14. Volunteers will assist with set up and running of the event which should take approx. 1 hour from start to finish. Please contact Siobhan at 0868405952 if you are interested. We very much look forward to our Lusk St Patrick’s Day parade and festivities this year! We would like to thank Lusk Community Council for organising this. Wishing you all a very happy St Patrick’s Day! Lá Fhéile Pádraig Shona Daoibh go Léir!

Recently Junsa Taekwondo held their first grading of 2022 in their new training venue, the Lusk Scout Hall. The new hall is a fantastic venue for our sport and we were made feel very welcome by everyone in the 153rd scout group.The club grading was a fantastic success with all students passing and attaining their grade with some double grade’s on the day. Our photos show some of our students on the day. Junsa Taekwondo would like to thank all their members and friends for the support during the last two years. We train at the Lusk Scout hall and are always accepting new members.

Lusk Athletic Club are looking forward to an exciting 2022 with all our adult and juvenile members with plenty of new PBs and more “Real events” to take part in. 2021 ended with a charity run on St Stephens Day where the club raised €700 for the local Lusk Community Unit. We then had two club races on the 28thDecember, the Holly Berry 10K won by Daniel O’Brien and the Turkey Trot 5K won by Sheila Bourke. Thanks to all who turned up to run or volunteer, we had a great turnout including a large group of friends from Balbriggan Runners who took part. On the 9th January 2022 the Dublin Master cross country championship races took place in St Annes Park, Raheny and Lusk Athletic Club were well represented in both the men’s and ladies’ races. Great running by all our athletes against the best master’s athletes from all the other Dublin athletics clubs. Lusk Athletic Club started another Fit4Life and Fit4Youth training programme on Tuesday 18th January. Our friendly coaches will continue help you to complete a Parkrun 5K after just 8 weeks training in a fun, relaxed environment. New members always welcome to the Hub, Rathmore Road any Tuesday or Thursday 6.45 PMregistration is now open at luskathleticclub.ie and on the Myrunresults website. We hope yo enoy or and photos highlights from 2021

The second phase of the Fingal County Council development plan is open and we encourage the community to engage with this. The document is very comprehensive so we will bring attention to areas of interest to Lusk on Facebook to make it easier to understand. This is a very important phase, and one of only a couple of opportunities to effect important change for Lusk. Very disappointingly, our plans for a biodiversity garden have had to come to an end for now. Unfortunately the access was deemed not suitable by Fingal County Council and to rectify this would have entailed using capital which, at the moment, is destined for other priorities in the town, as Lusk aims towards delivering the 2030 plan. Monday the 7th March will be our AGM. At the moment, it seems likely that this will have to be online. Please email us at luskactiongroup@gmail.com or call us on 0863017842 if you wish to attend. We also welcome new members at our AGM so if you are interested in joining our Lusk Action Group committee, get in touch

Pat Kelly LTTA

Lusk Tidy Towns Committee are delighted that our markings in the National Tidy Towns Competition went up by 5 points despite all the building works in Lusk. Thank you to everyone who supported our Christmas Card Launch and to those who purchased the card and calendar. It is now 30 years of producing cards, and a book will be produced of the cards and verses written by local residents and photographers. Wishing everyone a very happy healthy new year..
Also this month Lusk Tidy Towns are very proud of the work they carry out on behalf of this community. However In order to appreciate the extent of change in our environment, snap-shots of old and new can be very helpful. The photo of the square in Lusk was taken in 1980.

As we crystal ball gaze over coming months, we must also start planning for what we know. St. Patrick’s Festival will provide an opportunity for the community to celebrate our National Holi-day and while we don’t yet know what that will look like, we are starting to plan for the day, in the hope that Lusk will be able to have its traditional parade. Come what may, the Community Coun-cil will look to brighten up the town with banners and bunting. We will have the Round Tower il-luminated again for the festival and all going well, we will have a real life parade on the streets of Lusk.We are encouraging every household to play their part by flying flags and bunting across the town for St. Patrick’s Festival. If everyone makes an little effort, it will lift the spirits of the town and in the light of the last two Covid years, this will be much needed. Lusk Community Clean-Up, organized by Willie McGee, is one such example of a bunch of volunteers making a big difference with the appearance of the town. Willie particularly wants to give a shout out to Lusk Community College students for taking part in the Clean-Up.The Fingal Development Plan Review is ongoing with motions being proposed by Councillors in recent weeks. The Draft Fingal Development Plan will be on public display for a period of 10 weeks from February 2022 to May 2022. This will be your opportunity to comment on the plan and to review what is being proposed. In the context of the Development Plan Review we have delayed the first meeting of the Lusk Vision 2030 Imple-mentation Group to February. 2022 is looking good so far. Let’s hope it continues.

At the January Area meeting Cllr Rob O’Donoghue tabled a motion regarding improved walking a cycling infrastructure to service within the town boundary of Lusk and also facilitate connectivity to the Rush & Lusk Train Station in line with the concept of a 15-minute city or town centre first approach.In response the Council stated that plans have been identified on their programme of works under the Lusk Station Road East West Route and their Lusk Village Scheme, works that are currently planned to commence with feasibility and development in the first quarter of 2023. Cllr O’Donoghue stated that the identified works are much needed in the town with peak hour traffic between Lusk and the train station growing apace. He continued that ‘the town centre first approach would facilitate better mobility links for the people of Lusk within the town and the cycle link to the train station would provide much needed access to the train station that can offer cyclists and pedestrians an alternative route to the train station which would circumvent the usage of the busy main Lusk to Rush road. I look forward to these plans being brought to fruition in the future.’

Congratulations to Lusk farmer Shane Halpin who won “Other Enterprises” category (Horticulture) at the FBD Young Farmer of the Year Awards 2021 in association with Macra na Feirme in partnership with the IFA. The competition was first launched in 1999 and and has been successful in raising the profile of young farmers within their community by recognising their achievements and contribution to farming.. Shane graduated from Technological University Dublin with a degree in Horticulture. He always had an interest in farming from a very young age, he gained this interest from his grandad and his uncles at their farm in Lusk, he spent all his school holidays working with them. Shane also spent some time working on farms in New Zealand and the USA to gain further experience.Shane started Welgro Produce which is located in Rush, Co. Dublin along with Sean and Gary Weldon in 2020.Welgro is one of only two commerical cucumber growers in Ireland. The company employs up to 15 people at peak times in the areas of grading/picking/packing and distribution. Their company recently won “The Irish Newbie new entrant competition” in association with Teagasc. They were also featured on RTE’s “Ear To The Ground” program recently. Shane is also a member of The North County Dublin Macra na Feirme. Shane made it into the final five of the Young Farmer of the Year Award 2021 by winning his category. The awards were announced on December 17th at an event which was streamed live on Macra Na Feirme’s Facebook page and zoom. After receiving the award Shane said he was extremely proud of his achievement for his company and for the horticulture industry.