Sweeping 11th ashes cost £200,000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/northern_ireland/8266419.stm Version 0 of 1. Cleaning up Northern Ireland's bonfire sites this year cost more than £200,000. The figures, in answer to assembly questions from the SDLP's Thomas Burns, detail £116,978 was spent by NI's 26 local councils repairing bonfire sites. The Department of Regional Development said it cost about £84,000 to clean and repair bonfires lit on roads. This included £20,000 to repair damage to the concrete and road surface of the Lecky Road Flyover in Londonderry. The highest council figure was from Belfast City Council, with a bill of £20,141, followed by Craigavon, £14,000, and Larne, £12,016. There are thousands of bonfires across NI over the summer mostly marking the 11th night, a loyalist tradition. There are a small number of republican bonfires in August, marking internment. Four councils listed no clean-up costs for bonfires, they were Omagh, Strabane, Dungannon and South Tyrone and Fermanagh. |