Moyle District Council - Enforcement Officer?

Another Fine Mess

Click images to enlarge

A councillor at the bi-monthly meeting of Moyle District Council on Monday (Oct 10) drew a council official's attention to the presence of a ramp of soil and rock on the shore of the small bay just west of Roarke's cottages at Ballintoy Harbour. Was this a left-over from a Game of Thrones set?

A digger, tractor and trailer were used on Tuesday to shift the material but, for some inexplicable reason, one of the loads was tipped back onto the foreshore beside the cottages - as indicated by the yellow arrow in the top photo and in the one above.

We do have a Northern Ireland Environment Agency and a Planning Service but neither can be relied upon when it comes to the protection of the environment, not even in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty or in Areas of Special Scientific Interest. Perhaps the Minister for the Environment should insist that his officials carry out their tasks on a fair and equitable basis - or else cull those departments that serve no useful purpose or facilitate the agents of powerful interests to work their way around the regulations. Perhaps he and his ministerial colleagues should shut down the Thursday Club too.

A quote for councillors:

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. .. Edmund Burke

Update

Here are two photos taken between the departure of the film crew and the arrival of the digger.

 Why does officialdom focus its attention on the small problems and avert its gaze from the big ones? Moyle District Council will (sometimes) pursue you through the courts if you fail to pay a fine for dropping a cigarette butt and a councillor told me that the NIEA will (sometimes) prosecute you if someone dumps asbestos in, say, your skip. On the other hand, the Planning Service will (sometimes) let you build what you want wherever you want. It's a crazy bureaucratic world.