The gallery was full, and the message was clear: Bray wants a Town Team

At last nights Bray Municipal District meeting the public gallery was full and was packed with people from different community groups who'd come out to hear whether Bray was going to get it's own Town Team.

A few weeks ago I wrote about why Bray needs a Town Team, and then about why I was amending the Town Forum motion that was due before the MD. Last night, both of those threads came together in the chamber.

What happened

The original motion asking for a town forum was proposed by Cllr Behan and seconded by Cllr Duddy. I put forward my amendment, calling for a Town Team rather than a Town Forum, with a health check of the town centre as its first piece of work. It was seconded by Cllr Doyle and Cllr Corrigan.

Since I first posted about this on social media, I've been inundated with messages of support and requests to get a Town Team up and running. The council received multiple pieces of correspondence from community groups, submitted specifically to be read out at the meeting in support of a Town Team.

My job as an elected representative is to listen to what the public wants and to advocate for it.  The people of Bray have been asking for a Town team and a lot of work has happened in the past to try and get this over the line.

To their credit, Cllr Behan and Cllr Duddy acknowledged it. They said they could see "the writing on the wall", both in my amendment and in the room behind us, but they still urged the MD to set up a Town Forum in the meantime, to run until a Town Team could be established.

I understand the instinct, but I don't think it stacks up in practice. We explained that standing up a Forum now, only to fold it into a Town Team shortly after, would mean doubling up on work, asking traders, residents and community groups to give up their time twice over for two versions of the same conversation. It would also delay the piece of work that actually needs to happen first: a full, evidence-based health check of Bray town centre, the kind carried out in 2019, so that whatever we build next is based on facts rather than impressions.

In the end, Cllr Behan withdrew his motion, and my amendment was put to a vote. It was supported by every councillor in the chamber.

Why this matters

A unanimous vote doesn't always happen. It means Bray Municipal District now has cross-party/non-party agreement to establish a Town Team, the model that's actually wired into Town Centre First funding, the Town Regeneration Officer, and the grant streams that can turn a plan into real investment on Main Street.

None of this would have carried the same weight without the room being full last night. Councillors respond to evidence and to argument, but also responded to seeing, in person, that it's traders, residents, and community groups who've given up their evening because they care about the outcome.

What happens next

The work now starts: agreeing terms of reference, membership, and getting the health check of Bray town centre underway. I'll keep you posted as it progresses. In the meantime, thank you to everyone who emailed, messaged, wrote in, or came out last night.