Lottery boost for Fermanagh waterways

Lottery cash from the New Opportunities Fund is helping a Fermanagh community launch an innovative scheme to clean up local waterways and develop a boat service to nearby nature reserves and places of environmental interest.

Devenish Partnership Forum secured a grant of £178,423 from the Fund’s Transforming Your Space programme to clean up local waterways, promote some of the area’s greatest natural resources and encourage environmental awareness.

The community organisation is also using some of the lottery funding to enhance an organic garden in the Devenish area and make it fully accessible to disabled groups. The clean-up scheme will focus on waters around the Cornagrade and Kilmacormack housing estates and will benefit waterways in Enniskillen which have become a dumping ground over the years.

Project co-ordinator Andy Greene, said that no local agencies have taken responsibility for the ongoing problem of litter in the waterways around Enniskillen in the past.

“Fermanagh will enjoy cleaner, rubbish-free waterways, bringing knock-on benefits for tourism and the local economy," Mr Greene said. "There will also be gains to wildlife that depend on the waterways for habitats and nesting sites.

“There are a number of sanctuaries and monastic sites on Lough Erne which are great places for environmental trips. A lot of people from the estates have probably never even been to Devenish Island, so it will be a great opportunity for them.”

A portion of the funding will be used to re-launch an existing boat for environmental education and community trips around the waters.

The Devenish Dream will be in operation within the next few weeks, taking students and visitors to Devenish Island and other sites of interest to look at the history of the area and the water ecology.

The Forum is also building a new jetty, with disabled access, adjacent to its Nature Reserve and this will be a starting point for the boat trips. The organic garden was also established just over a year ago and is already proving a success within the community and beyond.

This year the New Opportunities Fund and the Community Fund merge in advance of creating a new National Lottery distributor that will administer 50 per cent of all good cause funding.

However, the merger will not affect current programmes, beneficiaries or applications.

(MB)