Ashefield » westmeath

Plans for a new litter bin near the Ashe Road entrance

keith — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 05:27:48 +0000

Conor, an Ashefield resident, got in touch with Westmeath County Council regarding the litter problem on Ashe Road near the estate entrance and green area. Their response was:

I refer to your letter re the above and wish to advise that Mullingar Area Office will seek to erect a new bin at the pedestrian crossing on Ashe Road near Tesco entrance.

This will hopefully help to reduce the litter dumped over the wall into the green area. Thanks, Conor!

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Post tags: Ashe Road, bin, council, litter, westmeath

Home heating oil prices for June, 2010

keith — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:24:38 +0000

It may be the longest day of the year but having oil in the tank to heat your home during the inevitable shorter and colder days can’t be forgotten about. Since our last oil price check in April, the carbon tax for home heating kerosene kicked in at the start of May. This added an extra €43 to the cost of 1000 litres of kerosene.

However, even with the introduction of this tax and accounting for the rising oil prices, there has been a dramatic change in the oil prices per supplier. In fact, it’s quite an eye opener.

The most expensive supplier on June 21, 2010 for delivery to Mullingar town is Flynn Fuels (€740) and the least expensive is McGee Oil (€620) for 1000 litres of kerosene; a whopping €120 difference between the two. In this chart below, the April 1st prices are in blue and the June 21st prices are displayed in red.

Even accounting for the carbon tax on home heating oil and rising oil prices, we noticed wide variations in price increases by supplier between the period April 1 and June 21, 2010. As shown in the chart below, for 1000 litres of kerosene, Flynn Fuels increased their price by €140 whereas McGee oil raised their price by just €20; not even enough to cover the carbon tax.

*No updated information for Topaz Energy was available – they didn’t answer the phone despite multiple attempts.

*No information for Topaz Energy was available – they didn’t answer the phone despite multiple attempts.

As before, the prices quoted above should be considered valid for June 21, 2010 for delivery to Mullingar only and were based on the best cash or credit card price quoted. In this case, no differences between cash and credit card payment were noted.

If any supplier wishes to revise their prices downward, we welcome them to contact us at info [at] ashefield.com and we’ll note it here.

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Post tags: carbon tax, heating, hyperlocal, kerosene, mullingar, oil prices, suppliers, westmeath

Bin wars

keith — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:35:10 +0000

In what is being described as ‘bin wars’, the confusion over who legally owns the refuse and recycling bins originally given to local residents was addressed by the council recently. In this week’s Westmeath Examiner, they report that:

County Manager Danny McLoughlin said that 14,000 Blue Bins and 1,000 Brown Bins had been purchased by Westmeath County Council over the past six years and delivered to its customers for their use in the Council’s waste collection service, but having taken the decision to get out of the refuse service, they had legally sold them to Oxigen Environmental, as part of the public tendering process.

In addition to the bins, the database of customers was also sold to Oxigen. This explains why you might have seen their stickers plastered on the bins after leaving them out for emptying. However, the Westmeath Examiner also reports that someone from a refuse company entered private property during the night to place a sticker on a bin. This of course, is illegal so please do report any instances of trespassing to the Gardaí.

The situation seems to be somewhat clearer now. McLoughlin continues:

“…if people did not want to do business with Oxigen, they should phone the company and ask them to take the bins away: “People should give the bins back because they don’t own the bins, these bins were transferred to this company legally”

Read the full article

Both Allied Waste Management and Wallace Recycling will continue to empty the bins as normal. Unlike Oxigen, these are smaller local companies employing local people in a tough market so it makes sense to maintain your support for them. In particular, Allied Waste has been serving Westmeath for the past five years and are less expensive than Oxigen’s normal bin tag prices also.

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Post tags: Allied Waste Management, bin tags, bin wars, bins, County Council, mullingar, refuse collection, wallace recycling, westmeath, westmeath examiner

Home heating oil price check for April

keith — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:11:30 +0000

Here are the prices from 11 suppliers of home heating oil (kerosene) for April 1, 2010. There’s not a huge difference in prices for 1000 litres of oil for cash payments. The companies marked with an asterisk (*) are Hamills and Whelans. Hamills quoted €630 for credit card payments and €610 for cash.

Whelans Oil is a local company based in Grove St., Mullingar, and from experience offer the best value as they will deliver out of hours (even late at night if you’ve ordered that day) and won’t leave you stuck.

Please note that these prices are only valid for April 1, 2010 and are subject to change.

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Post tags: home heating, mullingar, oil, oil suppliers, prices, westmeath