Those who take advantage of purchasing a long stay parking disc for the two major town centre car parks in Castlebar, will potentially see their cost of parking increase in the near future.
At Tuesday’s budget meeting of Castlebar Town Council, town manager Seamus Granahan said that the council was looking at increasing the cost of the long stay discs in Market Square and Castle Street car parks in the coming months in an effort to get people to migrate their long stay parking towards the new car park on Pavilion Road and the car park in Spencer Street on the outskirts of the town centre.
Mr Granahan did go on to say that while the cost of the long stay parking in the two town centre car parks would go up, there would be a new lower long term rate for the two outlying car parks and the council would be looking at introducing new all day tickets for those car parks such as a €2 ticket for the day. These all day tickets would be aimed at shoppers and users of the courts service in the town.
According to the council’s estimated outturn on last year’s car parking in the town they expect to take in €993,270, down from the estimated €1,016,200 a drop of about 12 per cent. In his budget presentation the town manager said that the shortfall could be put down to the free parking periods in July and December that the elected councillors voted to have during the year. However Cllr Michael Kilcoyne told the meeting that the council could have made up that shortfall and taken in a lot more money if there was proper parking enforcement on Sundays. He told the meeting he doesn’t know why anyone would pay for parking on a Sunday when there is never any enforcement and they’ll never get caught. Mr Granahan responded by saying that there is enforcement on Sundays when the council can do it and that the gardai are also responsible for traffic enforcement along with the council.
