Cork’s St Patrick's Street remains country's top parking blackspot for third year in a row

The latest figures show fines totaling just over €2.3m were issued to motorists in Cork City last year

New figures provided by Cork City Council show traffic wardens issued a total of 3,090 fines for a variety of parking offences on the city’s main thoroughfare — known locally as “Pana” — during 2023. File picture: Denis Minihane

Cork’s St Patrick's Street has retained its position as the country’s biggest trap for illegal parking with over 3,000 motorists issued with fines last year.

New figures provided by Cork City Council show traffic wardens issued a total of 3,090 fines for a variety of parking offences on the city’s main thoroughfare — known locally as “Pana” — during 2023. It is the third year in a row that St Patrick’s Street has emerged as the prime location across the entire country for detecting illegally parked vehicles.

However, the figure is approximately 460 fewer than in 2022. 

Over 40% of offenders last year were issued with a €40 fine for parking in a “no parking” zone on St Patrick’s Street, while another 20% were caught parking in a loading bay. However, almost 600 motorists were issued with a fine for the “wrong vehicle class".

Figures released by Cork City Council under freedom of information legislation reveal there was a slight reduction in the overall number of parking fines issued across the city last year. A total of 49,511 parking offences were detected by the city’s traffic wardens in 2023 — a decrease of less than 1% on the previous year. 

In 2022, the number of fines had soared by 57% to 49,956 as traffic in Cork City returned to normal levels following the lifting of restrictions introduced to combat the covid-19 pandemic. The latest figures show fines totaling just over €2.3m were issued to motorists in the city last year.

South Mall retained its reputation as another prime location for illegally parked vehicles with 1,860 offences detected there last year. The third-highest ranking blackspot for illegal parking in Cork was Grand Parade where over 1,200 motorists were issued with fines in 2023.

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The top 20 locations were largely unchanged from the previous year, although there was a sizeable increase in the number of fines issued to vehicles parked in the council’s car park in Ballincollig — almost 600 more than in 2022 with a total of 719 parking tickets issued to users of the car park last year.

Locations to drop out of the top 20 areas for parking fines in Cork last year were Academy Street, Crosses Green Quay and Main Street, Ballincollig. Approximately 40% of all motorists issued with parking tickets last year were fined for failing to register “a parking event” by phone. 

Two motorists were each fined €200 for using a disabled parking permit when they were not entitled to one on Main Street, Ballincollig during the year. Another 686 motorists received a €150 fine for parking in a space reserved for disabled drivers without a valid permit with a high proportion occurring on South Mall.

More than 2,400 drivers were issued with a €80 fine for parking on a footpath with the main blackspots for the offence being identified as Church Street in Douglas, Railway Street and MacCurtain Street. A further 63 motorists were fined the same amount for parking on cycle tracks with George’s Quay the prime location for such offences.

There are around 8,000 paid on-street parking spaces in Cork with approximately 1,800 in the city centre area.