NAAS, 28 June 2001: by Brian Byrne. The planned introduction of paid parking for Naas has been further deferred until September 1, amid rows over resident parking in estates surrounding the town centre.
The ‘pay and display’ parking system had been originally projected for last year, then was postponed until July of this year. And the further postponement could mean a curtailment of planned UDC spending for 2001 because of reduced parking revenue expectation.
At a special meeting of the UDC last night, there was opposition from officials and gardai to a request that residents-only parking in a number of estates be included in the new by-laws, to prevent all-day parking by car owners who will be unable to leave their vehicles in public parking spaces.
The request for 'estate protection' by Cllrs Mary Glennon, Willie Callaghan, Seamie Moore and Pat McCarthy was met with a counter-suggestion that a ‘wait and see’ period of a month be taken before including residents-only systems, on the grounds that ‘it would be difficult to pull back’ from such a system if it was found to be unnecessary. And anyway, the meeting was told there are insufficient traffic wardens to deal with any increased parking restriction areas.
“I can’t understand the logic of waiting,” Cllr Glennon told KNN afterwards. “Surely we shouldn’t have to wait for a bad situation to develop before setting up a system to deal with it. And if we wait for it to happen, as it surely will, won’t it be equally difficult to pull back from that?”
She pointed to the situation in Lakelands where the estate roads are being used as car parks (below) for the hospital, with the authorities unable or unwilling to deal with it despite pleas from local residents, as an example of the kind of thing that is likely to happen elsewhere in Naas once priced parking is introduced.
It was eventually decided that the situation would be monitored by officials and gardai, and if a problem was found it would be addressed quickly.
©2001brianbyrne/knn