Municipal districts to rule on pay parking costs

Newly formed municipal districts in Co Cork will have the power to decide on introducing or axing pay-parking, but doing the latter will see them lose funding from Cork County Council.

The county council’s Transport Special Purposes Committee (SPC) has drawn up guidelines designed to get uniformity around the county, but that is unlikely to happen even with the promise of additional funding for towns which keep or introduce pay parking.

At a heated debate lasting several hours in County Hall yesterday, a number of councillors stated they would not introduce pay parking in their towns, no matter what the incentive was.

This was especially evident from comments made by councillors representing the council’s Western Division region where, no towns have pay parking apart from Kinsale and Bandon.

Transport SPC chairman and Independent councillor Declan Hurley said he recognised it was not a case of one size fits all, but was hoping the framework his committee had set out would work.

The SPC said municipal districts maintaining or introducing pay parking would get “a dividend” from the county council which could be used for local projects.

The size of the dividend will depend on the amount of money brought in, so if pay parking costs are reduced the dividend will also be cut.

The proposed bylaws will limit pay parking from 10am- 5pm, Mondays to Saturdays. On-street charges would be from 80 cent to €1.50 per hour, with off-street parking from €3-€5 per day.

Off-street cars parks will be free from December 8 to January 6 each year. Restrictions will not apply to disabled drivers and no more than two resident parking permits will be issued per house.

The SPC also proposed that no permits be given to people living in apartments.

Council chief executive Tim Lucey said any decisions by the eight municipal districts would impact on the dividends coming to them.

Fianna Fáil councillor Christopher O’Sullivan and Independent Michael Collins were among a number of councillors who said they would never introduce pay parking in West Cork towns.

Fianna Fáil councillor Ian Doyle said traders suffered under pay parking and he would not like to see it introduced in Mitchelstown and his hometown of Charleville.

Derry Canty said there were no charges in Ballincollig, where they have a traffic warden, no charges in Carrigaline, but charges in Douglas. All three are in the same municipal district. “This is going to take some time to thrash out,” he said.

Fianna Fáil’sDan Joe Fitzgerald said Mallow had the lowest business rates in the county because the former town council had decided to subsidise them with profits from pay parking.

He said that, as business rates were being harmonised throughout the county, leading to an increase in Mallow, pay parking charges should be abolished or reduced.

Fianna Fáil’s Andrias Moynihan said councillors should reject the document entirely and make their own decision at municipal district level.

Mr Lucey warned that if municipal districts decided to axe pay parking it would have implications on the council’s overall budget.