A full review of parking in Mullingar, both paid and in estates, is to be carried out by the council “hopefully within the next few weeks”, it was revealed this week (May 26 ) in reply to queries on the vexed issue from at least four councillors.
Denis Leonard, senior executive officer for the Mullingar area, announced this at the monthly meeting of the town council after the “horrendous” issue of non-resident parking in estates close to the town, like O’Growney, Abbeylands, and Millmount Avenue, took up quite a bit of the meeting.
“A review should be carried out sooner rather than later, hopefully in the next few weeks” said Mr Leonard in reply to motions and questions frOm Cllrs Glynn, Collins, Burke, and Dollard.
He pointed out that despite the fact there were 3,500 private and public car parking spaces in the town, including 800 free spaces, he accepted the contention of the elected members that the number of complaints from residents of such estates blocked in their homes by lazy parkers had reached a critical mass.
Mr Leonard confirmed the council would look at all its car parks with a view to rotate or adjust the one-hour, two-hour or all-day designations of these facilities around the town.
“We got to make life a bit more bearable for the residents,” said Cllr Pat Collins, who was one of two members to bring up the case of Millmount Avenue.
Described as the “nearest cul-de-sac to the town”, he felt the council’s suggestion to paint double yellow lines for five metres each side of the entrance of the avenue would not be enough to solve the problems of the residents here.
He told the Advertiser that “even bin lorries can’t get up” because of the increase in non-resident parking here, and felt that residents’ permits might be the best way forward. He believed this problem was “going on for years”.
Cllr Ken Glynn pointed out that “nobody has called for double yellow lines to go the length of the avenue, but only at the entrance”, a noted jam point for cars coming round Nugent’s Corner.
Cllr Mick Dollard declared double yellow lines at Millmount Avenue “is a non-starter”.
“We have to be very practical and seek the permission of residents,” he said.
“We need a new traffic plan. Since the opening of the ring road [C-Link] the traffic movement in town has changed,” he added.
“We could look at streets that could benefit from being pedestrianised. We need to grab this problem by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shake. There are streets in this town crying out to be pedestrianised.”
Cllr Burke also sought clarification on the free-for-all parking on Blackhall Lane, on the way down to the tunnel, which he described as “a prime example of paid parking gone wrong”. He was assured this would also be included in the forthcoming review.
