Esker Hills

mr. vain

adser53 wrote: »

I really couldn't tell you Iolar as I live in a part of the estate unaffected by them.

The general feeling at the meeting last wednesday night, however, was that it still is a problem but I personally thought things had quietened down a bit since the first meeting.

We might have to invite some of our Northern friends down to lend a hand sort out the scum

The Loyalist group involved in that incident with the Romanians would be at polar opposites to the the good people of Esker Hills.

I myself was at the meeting and took away some positive things, The clean up in July will be the start of many years of community work in the area. Help will come from new quarters.

A priority for the residents will be the purchase of a lawn mower for the grassy bits. A couple of gallons of weed killer and a sprayer will keep the weeds down.

Their is a core group of people in the estate who are not prepared to lie down and once you have that your 80% there.

adser53

mr. vain wrote: »

The Loyalist group involved in that incident with the Romanians would be at polar opposites to the the good people of Esker Hills.

My comment about enlisting the help of the lads up North was meant to be taken as a joke

mr vain wrote:

A priority for the residents will be the purchase of a lawn mower for the grassy bits. A couple of gallons of weed killer and a sprayer will keep the weeds down.

As I mentioned at the meeting, this is indeed an option but presents many problems in itself. I asked were all residents prepared to cut all small greens, grass verges etc outside their homes and the general consensus was that everyone was happy to do this. While buying a lawnmower is the cheapest option in the long run we must consider insurance, storage, disposal of the grass cuttings and of course who will cut the grass in the first place. The amount of large green areas is savage in the estate and will take a good lot of work and organising to keep them up to scratch. I proposed a roster for this very purpose if this option is decided upon but it all depends on volunteers which there seems to be a bit of a shortage of in the first place. After I compile all the quotes and put figures on doing it ourselves the residents will have to vote on what way they want to do it.

mrvain wrote:

The clean up in July will be the start of many years of community work in the area

Hopefully so Mr Vain because I would hate to see this lovely estate deteriorate . Do you live in Esker Hills? I'm just asking cos I remember you advising someone on another thread to steer clear of the estate?

elainee40

Up the esker hills is what i say

Like "up the dubs" as i am one too lol

Sonic_exyouth

adser53 wrote: »

As I mentioned at the meeting, this is indeed an option but presents many problems in itself. I asked were all residents prepared to cut all small greens, grass verges etc outside their homes and the general consensus was that everyone was happy to do this. While buying a lawnmower is the cheapest option in the long run we must consider insurance, storage, disposal of the grass cuttings and of course who will cut the grass in the first place. The amount of large green areas is savage in the estate and will take a good lot of work and organising to keep them up to scratch. I proposed a roster for this very purpose if this option is decided upon but it all depends on volunteers which there seems to be a bit of a shortage of in the first place. After I compile all the quotes and put figures on doing it ourselves the residents will have to vote on what way they want to do it.

There are a few green areas that appear to have been never cut.
Really an estimate should be made first, then notification of the estimate.. then a collection.. imo!

elainee40

i can tell ya here and now, if some people turned up at some doors looking for money i could only imagine what would be said to you.

I use to do Avon around the area and the amount of abuse i got even just for putting the thing in the door. :mad:

adser53

Sonic_exyouth wrote: »

There are a few green areas that appear to have been never cut.
Really an estimate should be made first, then notification of the estimate.. then a collection.. imo!

In an ideal world this is exactly what we'd be doing but unfortunatly it's not that simple. I'm going to reiterate here what I said at the meeting for clarification purposes and to try gain some input from others. Basically- it's the egg before the chicken here. We need to collect the money to see what we get to decide on the best course.

First of all- all residents are to look after their own front planted areas , grass verges and small greens near their houses. For arguments sake, I'm going to define this as any green, on front, behind or beside your house that isn't surrounded by a main road on all 4 sides. This isn't gospel, just an indicator. Any contractor brought in to cut ALL grass on the estate is going to be way, way, WAY outside our price range.

Ok now, there are 3 options to maintaining the big greens as follows:

Option 1: Hire a contractor
Option 2: Buy a lawnmower and do it ourselves
Option 3: Hire a local person to come in 1 or 2 days a week to maintain the estate

Option 1: Essentially the problem in hiring the contractor is price. Quotes are slow to come back to me but, based on what I've got, your roughly looking at approx €1400 per month for 9 months (which equates to 18 cuts / once every 2 weeks for 9 monthsof the MAIN GREENS ONLY). This gives us a total of €12,600 per year. Now, there's 500+ houses in the esate but let's call it an even 500- this means, if every house was to pay, everyone would be paying €25.20 a year which is peanuts. Realistically, at most 30% of the estate will pay which means that each of these houses will have to pay €84 per year to cover the contractor, and the fact of the matter is people won't pay that.

elainee40 wrote:

i can tell ya here and now, if some people turned up at some doors looking for money i could only imagine what would be said to you.

I use to do Avon around the area and the amount of abuse i got even just for putting the thing in the door.

Exactly. The feelers were put out about this to a few people and almost eveyone said they wouldn't pay. This was homeowners and tenants alike. The feelings were that (A) We don't own this house (tenants) and (B) Why should I pay because I know the rented houses won't or Mr X up the road won't be paying (homeowner).

Y'see, this is what your up against so to expect contributions in excess of €12,000 a year is fantasy stuff!

Option 2 is the cheapest in the long run. We buy a lawnmower and do it ourselves. This would involve rosters and volunteers and 36 volunteers would mean that each person would only do it once a year (1 person cuts a different green each week). The problems with this option are insurance (we could get civil liability ? but that's another cost), disposal of grass cuttings, fuel costs, storage, volunteers etc. It's by no means the easiest option but I think it's the only one that has a serious chance of working within our tight budget constraints. This all depends on the amount of volunteers though and lets be fair- I doubt there will be any volunteers from areas that don't look out directly onto a green! Roughly speaking, for the lawnmower ALONE call it €3000, this equals €6 per house for the year if all 500 pay, or €20 per house if 30% pay. it doesnt' take a genius to show the savings there but remember, this figure is for the lawnmower alone.

Option 3 is that we hire, in essence, a maintenance man to come in for a day or two a week to clean up, cut the grass etc. This is a good option and eliminates a lot of hassle but obviously will cost more and we will more than likely end up having to buy all the equipment so the costs will be the same as option 2 plus the wages (would we have to pay tax on these too). I suppose for 1 day a week €300 a month wouldn't be bad would it? This means that this option will cost an additional €2700 (9 montsh work only?) per year on top of a lawnmower (€3000). This works out to being €11.40 per house for the year if all 500 pay, or €38 per house if 30% pay.

The only option we have at the minute is to put a "best possible" figure on the household contribution, go out collecting, count it up and see what we have the money to do. It's not just our estate though, it belongs to everyone in it and that's why I'm posting this up. People can see, in Black and white, the obstacles facing us and what's necessary to look after the estate.

Oh BTW, These figures also don't take into account any provisions for an overflow/slush fund to cover any additional costs that may arise infrequently or as a result of vandalism, accidental damage etc (eg bank charges, stationary charges for the leaflets, venue charges for large meetings, timber fencing in common areas, trees/shrubs, common walls being damaged and vandalised requiring repairs / paint .....the list goes on)

Like I said before- I'm new to all this and am trying my hardest but if anyone has any ideas on a better way to do this then please put it out there!:D
Sorry for the long post guys but I want everyone to be clear on what theyll be paying for and roughly what's needed to cover the basic costs.

elainee40

well said Adser

adser53

elainee40 wrote: »

well said Adser

I'm stll out of breath and have cramps in my hands after typing that post lol

elainee40

Hahaha.

A good way to find out who is interested in estate and that is on the clean up day. It will show the amount of people out that actually cleaning and care for the estate.

adser53

I was thinking the same myself. Knowing my luck 6 people will turn up

elainee40

So that would be the 4 Commitey (sp) me and my 20month old daughter then hahaha

***pitbull***

well said its a good idea but trying 2 get money of the people will be a lot of work, so i dnt no wat the best option is mate but i think its a catch 22 situation,

im also a dub

elainee40

Apparently there is a power cut in esker hills.

Poor partner is home sick and no electricity lol.

adser53

Theres enough of us dubs now to get a petition going to rename the estate Esker Hill 16 lol
I heard the leccie was down again, wonder why its happend twice in 2 weeks now?

elainee40

Most of portlaoise seem to go today.
Other half was at doctors on the main mountmellick road and they had no power either

Ttaf

Electricity gone in all of Fairgreen as well, including the Eurospar, chippies etc.

adser53

Looks like its a bbq for dinner so any excuse to enjoy the good weather!

Sonic_exyouth

still down?

adser53

Ok Esker Hillians.....Hillites.....Hillbernese...... whatever yis want to ba called the Esker hills dedicated website and forum is up and running.

Obvioulsy there's very little on it at the moment but please bookmark it and feel free to start a few threads tell anyone you know on the estate not on here too

The R.A will be posting any news, info, events, meeting minutes, links for local clubs and amenities etc up on it.

We'll still be handing out leaflets for the next few months but eventually we hope to get it all online to save the time, effort and hassle of making, printing and handing out fliers.

So...here yis go:

http://sites.google.com/site/eskerhills/Home - that's the website

http://eskerhills.myfreeforum.org/- and that's the forum

elainee40

cheers ears

adser53

We're up to 3 users on the forum wahey!!!
Just a quickie, we'll be doing up another flyer soon thats gonna have a recap of the meeting, link info for the website and forum and any other bits of info we can think off. Is there anything else anyone can think of that they want to put out to the estate?
It'd be great if we could get some help handing them out too, if anyone wants to give a hand PM me.
Thanks guys

elainee40

Guess who ive just seen going up primrose ave just 5 min ago, our resident Sargent lol.
She gone up the top where that house is maybe she is keeping eye out as she said

adser53

I saw her cycling up laurel drive at 6.30 too! Good on her

Sonic_exyouth

elainee40 wrote: »

Guess who ive just seen going up primrose ave just 5 min ago, our resident Sargent lol.
She gone up the top where that house is maybe she is keeping eye out as she said

The gypsy house?

adser53

I'm guessing so. I don't think theres any other house in the estate that elaine could be talking about

elainee40

I pursume thats where she went, she went up Primrose ave to the end were buttercup ave meets it. she was driving that was at 9.15

adser53

Its good to see they have increased their patrols in the estate as promised

adser53

This is a copy of the letter due to be issued to each house over the coming few days. Could anyone reading this please inform their neighbours about it.

Follwing on from the recent Resident Association meetings, where concern was voiced by many of you regarding the opening of the crèche and also regarding the availability of schools for the newcomers in the area, Owenass Development has proposed to modify the usage of the crèche building into a primary school.
As the local schools are in dire need of expansion, they are apparently overcoming the bureaucratic hurdles in record time; and might be in a position to have this completed by the beginning of the new school year this September.
However, as this will have a slight impact on the estate and it's residents, they have asked the Resident’s Association to run a poll to obtain approval from the residents for this proposal. As it stands, the building would have a capacity of 100 junior and senior infants.
Besides the obvious advantage of having a school in the area for our kids and toddlers, this would also have the added benefit of making it more attractive to open the shop at the entrance of the estate.
We would like to therefore kindly ask all households in the estate for their vote on this proposal. There will be a poll up on our website or forum within the next couple of days where each house can cast their vote. After voting, please PM "adser53" or "EuroTrash" with your address

http://sites.google.com/site/eskerhills
http://eskerhills.myfreeforum.org/index.php

Alternatively send a text to with your YES/NO vote and you're address to:
089 414 7955

(The reason we request your address is to prevent duplicate votes)

Regards,

The Esker Hills Residents Association Commitee
:D:D

Sonic_exyouth

adser53 wrote: »

This is a copy of the letter due to be issued to each house over the coming few days. Could anyone reading this please inform their neighbours about it.

Follwing on from the recent Resident Association meetings, where concern was voiced by many of you regarding the opening of the crèche and also regarding the availability of schools for the newcomers in the area, Owenass Development has proposed to modify the usage of the crèche building into a primary school.
As the local schools are in dire need of expansion, they are apparently overcoming the bureaucratic hurdles in record time; and might be in a position to have this completed by the beginning of the new school year this September.
However, as this will have a slight impact on the estate and it's residents, they have asked the Resident’s Association to run a poll to obtain approval from the residents for this proposal. As it stands, the building would have a capacity of 100 junior and senior infants.
Besides the obvious advantage of having a school in the area for our kids and toddlers, this would also have the added benefit of making it more attractive to open the shop at the entrance of the estate.
We would like to therefore kindly ask all households in the estate for their vote on this proposal. There will be a poll up on our website or forum within the next couple of days where each house can cast their vote. After voting, please PM "adser53" or "EuroTrash" with your address

http://sites.google.com/site/eskerhills
http://eskerhills.myfreeforum.org/index.php

Alternatively send a text to with your YES/NO vote and you're address to:
089 414 7955

(The reason we request your address is to prevent duplicate votes)

Regards,

The Esker Hills Residents Association Commitee
:D:D

Wow..

Thats seems like a great idea!

Can we PM you here?

adser53

Would you mind PMing me on the actual esker hills forum just so i can keep all the PMs together? If its not too much hassle of course