Council to debate fees for Kells car parks

Paid parking could be on the cards at the school and swimming pool car parks in Kells as councillors try to discourage all-day parking in the area. At a meeting of Kells Town Council last week, councillors heard a proposal from Tom McMahon of MDM Consultants that paid parking be introduced between the hours of 9.30am and 1pm and again between 3.30pm and 6pm at the car parks. Mr McMahon said this would allow school traffic to continue to use the car parks, but it would discourage all-day parking. The matter is now due to go before Kells area councillors at their meeting today (Wednesday). In a presentation to councillors at last week"s meeting, Mr McMahon outlined a survey carried out on parking patterns in both car parks. He said that most cars parked for less than 15 minutes, but there were some who stayed there all day. One car was there when they arrived at 8am and was still there when the survey ended at 6.30pm. He said cars dropped children off in the morning and many returned at 1pm to pick up children, while some stayed for another hour to pick up more children who were finishing later. He said some cars parked there for the entire school period and they could be either staff or students. Mr McMahon added that, at the first pick-up from primary school, cars were parked on double yellow lines, footpaths and pedestrian crossings, and then, at the second pick-up, there were also cars parked on the road outside, as the car parks were 'saturated'. He said there seemed to be a small amount of commuter traffic using the swimming pool car park as well as people parking for three to four hours there, and there seemed to be a slight trickle effect from school car parking. He said that, apart from traffic queuing to get out of the main car park, the system worked extremely well, except for people parking in bus bays. He suggested bus bays be better marked. Mr McMahon said there was a concern that, if long-term parking at the church car park was to end, people would gravitate to the school car park and that was why he suggested introducing paid parking. Cllr Bryan Reilly said pick-up and drop-off times at the school were bedlam and he asked what was the legal status of people parking on footpaths, the island in the middle of the road or on bus bays. He said it as only a matter of time before a child was injured or killed. Cllr Brian Curran said the council needed to meet with the boards of management of the schools to get their reaction. Cllr Peter Caffrey said he would have liked to have had the survey extended out to the N3. He said traffic coming from the schools onto the N3 cannot see what is on their left-hand side and he asked if a 'ghost roundabout" could be provided there. Cllr Conor Ferguson said cars parking on the roadway were making it difficult for buses to get by, while Cllr Sean Drew said buses had to be a priority but they found it nearly impossible to get by with parked cars. Cllr AO Farrelly said the paid parking at specific times was an excellent idea and asked could this be brought in as a by-law. Cllr Brian Collins said that bad behaviour was what was causing most of the problems there. The meeting heard that the issue would have to go before the Kells Area Council before the process of introducing by-laws could begin.