NEWBRIDGE, 2 August 2002: by Brian Byrne. Fears have been allayed that a street trader who has both served his customers and brightened up the Main Street in Newbridge for a quarter of a century would lose his pitch with the advent of pay parking.
Dick Wickstead will get a specially-marked pitch on the roadway where he has sold fruit and vegetables for a generation, thanks to the agreement by Kildare Area councillors at a recent area meeting that he shouldn't lose out under the new regulations, expected to come into force in the autumn.
"We all agreed it at our meeting," Cllr John O'Neill confirmed to KNN yesterday. "It wouldn't be right for Dick to have to go. His stand there also helps to bring people to other shops in that part of Main Street. We're going to put a special yellow-crossed bay for him to operate from on the same site."
Indeed, the esteem in which Dick is held by customers and nearby shopkeepers alike was recently shown when they gave him a surprise 'street party' to mark his 25 years of being their business neighbour.
More than 100 of them followed a piper up the street to his stand just before he closed for the night and brought out tables loaded with wine and food to celebrate the occasion.
"I was totally surprised," he said afterwards. "Even when the piper came up to my truck and stood beside me, I didn't realise it was for me."
The new regulations specifically prohibit the use of a vehicle parked in a ‘ticket parking place’ for ‘the sale of goods in or from a vehicle, or as an office’.
The by-laws were circulated to Kildare councillors at last Monday’s meeting. They provide for ‘pay and display’ one-hour parking along Main Street, Eyre Street, Edward Street and Charlotte Street in the town centre, and in the GAA car park behind the Town Hall.
Cutlery Road (above), where double yellow lines have already been painted in anticipation of the regulations, will have 2-hour parking on one side only. Fees are one euro or 50 cents per hour, depending on location. There is also provision for residents-only parking in a number of residential streets, including College Park and St Patrick’s Terrace. Residents will pay five euros per year for a parking permit, and may buy up to two other permits for use by visitors.
Parking prohibitions are also to be implemented on a number of roads and parts of roads.
There is apparently no provision for long-term parking in the plan, and the only available space for such parking is the car park at the rail station.
But local businesses have been canvassed by the operators of the private multi-storey car park recently built by local developer Tom Treacy, offering all-day parking seven days a week for 320 euros a year.
A number of them have taken up the offer. "It seems good value for a year," one said yesterday. "Anyway, there'd be nowhere else to go long-term, because all the spaces have to be vacated in two hours at most, and we'd never manage the kind of 'musical chairs' that would involve."
