NAAS 19 February 2003: A proposal to build a new ‘temporary’ car park for 200 cars at the wildlife end of the lakes on the Ballymore Road, for the exclusive use of Naas hospital staff, met with stiff opposition at Tuesday’s February meeting of Naas Town Council with one councillor threatening to face down bulldozers to prevent them from entering the site.
The proposal came from a meeting last week between representatives of Kildare County Council, Naas Town Council and the hospital authorities to try and solve the parking crisis in the area, due mostly to ongoing construction work at the hospital.
Officials had agreed ‘the most practical solution is to create a temporary car park for 200 cars until the hospital construction work ends in 2006’. All costs associated with the development of the car park, and its later restoration back to a green field site in 2006, would be borne by the hospital.
The hospital authorities have now submitted a proposal to construct the new car park on Council owned ground at the end of the lakes. This, they say, would allow the existing 187 parking spaces within the hospital grounds to be used exclusively for outpatients and visitors.
The only other possible location in the area is the swimming pool field but it was stated this does not have the capacity to cater for 200 car parking spaces and is somewhat removed from the hospital site.
The officials had opted for the lakes area at the top end of the Ballymore Road as an answer to their parking problems as it would provide ready access to the hospital for staff.
The proposal was put to members of Naas Town Council on Tuesday.
It came to light during discussion on a motion by FG Cllr Pat O’Reilly that the Council look at converting part of the Swimming Pool field into a car park. Cllr O’Reilly first mooted this idea two years ago.
In his report, town clerk Declan Kirrane said the Swimming Pool Field does not have the capacity to cater for 200 cars.
Town engineer John McGowan said the land at the swimming pool is limited due to the slope of the ground. He said additional car parking spaces will result from the realignment of the Craddockstown Road.
He was promptly told by Cllr O’Reilly that ‘there’s no such thing as a temporary car park once the tarmac goes down’.
He said there was also a parking problem for the two local CBS schools (the Primary School borders the Swimming Pool Field). He believed a car park at that location would facilitate access to both schools, particularly when Corban’s Lane becomes a one-way system.
From this week the parking situation will be further compounded as Kildare County Council is no longer able to provide 50 car parking facilities to the hospital at the rear of its County Council offices at St Mary’s.
Cllr O’Reilly told the town clerk the swimming pool field is more accessible than the wetlands area at the top of the lakes and could be screened off from public view.
Ind Cllr Seamie Moore said moving 80 cars from Kildare County Council and 120 from the hospital to another site beside the lake is not acceptable. It doesn’t solve the overall problem. He believed they should be looking for a car park for 500 cars.
“They have no control over where their staff park. They are directing people who go into the hospital grounds to go into Lakelands estate.” He said the Council should now consider holding a plebiscite among residents in Lakelands and those who live along the Ballymore Road so as to get a more equitable view of what is required.
He said the Council should refuse to support a planning application from the SWAHB to go to Stage 4 of the redevelopment of Naas Hospital until they come up with an overall car parking strategy. “Tonight, we must say we are not supporting the development of the next stage of the hospital until the overall plan for car parking in the area is brought back.”
At this, town manager Tommy Skehan said planning is a function of ‘himself or the county manager. “It’s a legal function. I have to take all sides into consideration. I don’t want it going out that there’s a recommendation to refuse a planning application that is under consideration and has not yet been determined,” he stressed.
“We’re entitled to object to a development that doesn’t have a car parking plan,” Seamie Moore hit back. He wanted to know if there are planning applications ‘in front of us being returned for further information’. Otherwise, he added, the statements being made ‘won’t carry any weight’.
Cllr Charlie Byrne (FF) said he ‘wouldn’t face the people’ if the plan for a car park at the lakes area was passed. He called it ‘a disgusting insult’ for the hospital to create such a situation for residents and then to start to take away part of a beautiful wild life amenity park. He claimed they would not get away with this in any other part of Ireland. “They’ve put the problem back to the Town Council,” he said. He insisted it would not be a temporary car park ‘because the people won’t stand for it’. He said this was an amenity area that had to be protected.
Charlie Byrne said he ‘would challenge it himself’. He had previously had a notice of motion passed to have trees planted in that area. “It’s insulting to me, to the Council and to the people of Naas to say they want it turned into a car park!
“These people came in here and improved the hospital with no consideration for the people around it or those on the far side of the lakes.” He believed the hospital management should demolish some of the older part of the hospital ‘to facilitate their staff’.
Cllr Byrne went on: “The staff were given the church car park in Ballycane and a bus to take them up and down but it was too far to walk. These people think they can take over the one wild life area left. Do you think they would get away with it in the other end of the town?”
He said the people will stand in front of any machines and he will be ‘No 1’ in the queue. “The Health Board crucified the local residents and now they want to transfer it to the other side of the lake.
“If I could go to court I would challenge it. They are not finished with me on that one,” he warned.
His stance over the wetlands area was taken up by Lab Cllr Pat McCarthy who warned of local opposition to the car park proposal.
Cllr Mary Glennon said to give the hospital the wetlands site ‘is rewarding them for their lack of care and attention’. “They didn’t bother with a public traffic plan and that they were allowed to get to this level of development is a crying shame. It typifies their attitude to the people of Lakelands.”
“We councillors did not have any say at that meeting with the management of Naas Hospital. I asked if we and the residents of Lakelands could be included and was told ‘No’. We always seem to find out about these things when they are presented to us, like this map tonight.”
She said the map provided by Council officials ‘looks an accomplished feat to me’. She was not having anything to do with destroying the swimming pool field or the vista down to the lake. “Kildare County Council owns that field and we should not even be considering turning it or the side of the lake into a car park just to facilitate the management of Naas Hospital who couldn’t find their way out of a cardboard box if you gave them a scissors,” she said.
“No development should in proper planning be allowed to put up a huge building and then take what limited parking facilities they have provided and turn it into a storage area. This is planning at its worst,” she told officials.
She said the hospital people should go back to the drawing board and find resources within the hospital grounds and not be taking amenity areas for a parking lot.
Cllr Willie Callaghan FF asked for a definite plan from the SWAHB on how they would organise their car parking up to and beyond 2006. He said a lot of the development in the hospital hinges on future plans for Kildare County Council - if and when they are moving out of St Mary’s. He believed KCC and Naas Town Council and the SWAHB should all get together to find a solution, but he didn’t see how a car park would work at the lakes.
Mayor Timmy Conway (PDs) said the people living in the area would not support the proposal. “We have to bring everybody along with us as much as we can. I wouldn’t agree to accept this. I could not support Pat O’Reilly’s motion,” he said.
In his right of reply, Cllr O’Reilly accepted the decision of the Council but said: “We’ve got to come to a decision. There is no public car park in that area.” He said the staff of the hospital will rebel if they have to park at the end of the lakes. He understood the Health Board will be moving in to St Mary’s when Kildare County Council eventually moves out and said there may well be enough space to build a multi storey car park.
The town clerk said the parking problem at the hospital is compounded from the beginning of this week as Kildare County Council is no longer in a position to provide car parking facilities to the hospital authorities at the rear of its County Council offices at St Mary’s. This will result in around 50 car parking slots being lost to the hospital authorities.
Work on the realignment of the Craddockstown Road will start in April and will effect the car parking along the road at the hospital. The new entrance to the hospital will be 150 feet further up the Craddockstown
Road.
Mr Kirrane said by June there will be 132 spaces in the hospital grounds, 232 in February 2004 and possibly up to 280. He believed the wetlands area to be an interim solution to the parking problem. He said after 2006, the need might be to provide 6/700 spaces.
Cllr Seamie Moore said the main problem as he saw it was that no one in the SWAHB has come forward with a figure that says this is what will be required when work to the hospital is completed.
Cllr Callaghan agreed a suggestion by Cllr Glennon to look at providing car parking to the front of the green at Lakelands, close to the hospital and said the views of local residents would have to be considered. However, the town engineer said the area was not big enough to cater for what was needed.
Willie Callaghan said drivers parking along the road would get the message soon enough if their cars were clamped.
A plebiscite is to be held immediately among the residents of Lakelands to ascertain their views on Residents Only parking.
Mayor Conway asked Pat O’Reilly to agree to have his motion adjourned for the present. The Mayor said the ‘hospital people have to play a very active role in all this. The last time we had them in here at a meeting it was disgraceful. We’re not going to go through that again!”
