Mayo councillor calls on council to block circus accessing Castlebar site

A Castlebar councillor has called on Mayo County Council to find a way of blocking the circus from pitching its big top on a site at the edge of the town.

The circus is currently in Castlebar for the weekend with the first show to take place this evening but a local councillor has described the site at Milebush as totally unsuitable and fears a fatality will occur to a member of the public.

Fine Gael councillor Ger Deere told the monthly meeting of the Castlebar Municipal District that residents close to the private site area are against the circus locating there but because circuses are exempt from planning they can do nothing.

He asked the council executive to look at ways of blocking the circus accessing the site next year and find a more suitable location.

“I know they are exempt from planning and nobody wants to stop it with the tradition but we have to do something to stop the circus going out there,” he told the meeting.

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“We have to try to accommodate the circus providers coming to town with a suitable site. I know the Barracks is out of question now but there should be an onus on them to contact us.

“It is a crying shame we are in this situation again. The residents are not happy mainly for health and safety reasons. Parking out there is not suitable and is there anything we can do to stop the circus from coming into town and going into the most unsuitable site.

“We have to come up with a way of blocking it. We will have a fatality on our hands or a serious accident out there. We have to look at all options,” he said.

Party colleague, Cllr Donna Sheridan agreed that the location is not suitable and suggested contacting the Health and Safety Authority to look into the location of the circus.

Cllr Deere added he did not want to stop the circus coming to Castlebar but was adamant that the location was not suitable.