Council preparing to clamp down on ‘meter feeders’ abusing two-hour parking rule

Meath County Council is preparing to crack down on people who keep "feeding the meter" and park all day long in the one spot in Navan.

The council is to carry out a review to establish and get evidence of cars parking for longer than two hours.

"The information will then be brought back to the councillors along with revised parking bye-laws that may alleviate the current situation," Director of Services, Martin Murray, told last week's meeting of Navan Municipal Council.

Cllr Francis Deane had called on the council to "ensure that the two-hour parking rule is properly policed, in particular, on Ludlow Street where business owners are witness to several people who feed the parking meters for a full day.” He was told Meath parking services will arrange for the traffic wardens to increase observations on cars with valid pay and display over two hours on Ludlow Street and all town centre locations.

Cllr Deane said it was an issue that had to be addressed. "I don't like to see this being abused. If it was policed properly, it would make a big difference to retailers," he said.

Cllr Linda Nelson Murray said it was a big issue for businesses, while Cllr Padraig Fitzsimons that he presumed the perpetrators are people who work on the street.

The bye-laws were originally introduced to provide a quick turnover of parking spaces in the town and parking is restricted to two hours on the town's main streets.

Mr Murray told the meeting that the only legal mechanism they have is to look at the bye-laws.

"Theoretically and legally a person can park at one spot for two hours, and then move to a second spot and park for another two hours, although this is not in the spirit of what the bye-laws were meant to achieve.

"They were meant to achieve a turnover for the retail sector, you park, you buy, you move on.

"It is about having space available for a quick turnover. We have long term car parking. We have increased long term parking. We will be coming back with a review of this to get evidence of people going beyond two hours on certain streets, and I want to point out it is not just Ludlow Street," he said.