Glenravel residents plan for winter

The focus of the event was to empower the community to help themselves, with support from statutory authorities, emergency services and other relevant organisations.

Presentations were delivered from Ballymena Borough Council, Warm Homes Scheme, NI Fire & Rescue Service, DRD Roads Service, PSNI and NI Electricity.

The large audience was held captive by the very interesting and informative presentations and a Question & Answer session provoked healthy debate around issues such as the gritting of roads and provision of emergency generators to those dependent upon medical equipment at home.

Cllr. Paul Maguire, chaired the event, he said: “Glenravel people are very resilient and very independent. They neither expect nor want to be mollycoddled or made a special case of. Glenravel is a rural community and it’s older residents in particular have lived with adversity and have learnt to make the best of it and are by and large, happy to do so.

“However Glenravel is a very rural and isolated community with Skerry approximately 600 feet above sea level. These factors render Glenravel more in need at times than other areas within the borough and sometimes a sense of inequality is felt whenever statutory organisations and services appear to favour other, mainly urban communities, who pay no more in taxes and rates than we do but seem to get much more for their pound.

“The purpose of tonight’s meeting is to make introductions and build relationships between the community and the statutory agencies and organisations which are in a position to help us help ourselves this winter and thus improve the quality of life for all.”