*Parking fees are now proposed for the Miltown Malbay Rd car park in Lahinch. Photograph: John Mangan
PROPOSED PARKING CHARGES for Lahinch are meeting a backlash from local residents and business owners.
As first reported by The Clare Echo in July, new parking bye-laws are to propose a larger area of Lahinch be covered.
Under the bye-laws which are still in draft format, three hour parking will now cost €2 and all day parking will need a ticket worth €5 in the beach car park of Fanore, the East End car park in Kilkee, the West End car park in Kilkee, promenade car park, Liscannor Rd car park and Miltown Malbay Rd car park.
A maximum two hour parking restriction for €2 is also proposed for Lahinch’s Main Street, Church Street and Rue D’Arzon.
Presently parking is free on the Miltown Malbay Rd which can accommodate 101 cars including two for disability access and two which serve as charging points for electric vehicles.
Bill Slattery of the Lahinch Development Association was adamant the proposals cannot proceed. “It will have a serious impact on the businesses and residents in my opinion, the business people are already paying rates, it will be detrimental to the main street in Lahinch if parking was to be enforced on the right-hand side and the left side outside of Daybreak. If the charges are enforced, it will have a detrimental effect on businesses and residents”.
Slattery who was a Fine Gael councillor from 2011 to 2019 told The Clare Echo, “The amount of people that have come to me because I was a former councillor is unreal, the reaction is all negative, there is nobody I have met that is in favour of this, I don’t even know where this came from because it came out of the blue. Every space in Lahinch is going to be utilised as a paid parking area, everybody is up in arms over it, it’s an extra charge on the people coming here for years plus the cost of living, accommodation and everything else, it is unreal that we will have this in the small village of Lahinch”.
Parking charges on the promenade car park were introduced in the 1990s. Slattery recalled, “Our local councillor Frank Henchy was under severe pressure from the executive of Clare County Council at the time, he was looking for money for the promenade in Lahinch to be upgraded, he had to succumb to the request for parking charges to be enforced in Lahinch. I was involved in the Community Council at the time, we protested on the promenade but unfortunately they went against us because the Council and councillors felt money was needed for the upkeep and maintenance of the promenade. Since that, new bye-laws came in in 2012, beach bye-laws came in that year too and parking charges for €2, I felt that was okay provided all the money was going back to the promenade and the Lahinch area”.
A Director on the Board of Lahinch Leisure Centre, Bill warned that year-round parking fees would be “detrimental to the sustainability of the Leisure Centre, it just won’t last, 90 percent of that car park will be idle in the winter time except for the people using the swimming people because the prevailing winds from the sea mean it’s not the best place to be on a winter’s day. They are picking at the low fruit and we have to try stop this”. He did not believe parking fees would result in increased revenue and the likelihood of more projects being undertaken in Lahinch. “This is a totally reserved function of the elected members of the West Clare Municipal District under the 2014 Local Government Act, I would hope they would do the right thing and vote for the common good of the village of Lahinch by not letting this go forward”.
One of the elected members, Cllr Shane Talty (FF) has said he will not be voting in favour of the bye-laws if they are put before a meeting of the West Clare MD. “I will be voting against what is on the table but the difficulty is there are important pieces within each town and village on what is needed to be controlled where the previous bye-laws introduced in 2012 were not offering them protection. We still want a situation where updated guidelines can be brought in but not this over-reach”.
Reaction locally has not been favourable to the plans, Cllr Talty admitted. “There is a groundswell of absolute opposition to the proposals presented and particularly to encroach into new areas that weren’t included”.
Monies received from the parking fees will not necessarily be earmarked to be kept in Lahinch, he said. “Across the county they won’t ring-fence the money whether it is the Cliffs of Moher or Ennis, it all goes into the Council Budget which is then passed each November”.
Although Cllr Talty has been one of the elected representatives to seek a review of the current parking bye-laws, he didn’t agree with what was put on the table. “I’ve called for parking bye-laws in some areas to control and regularise it to manage parking and overnight camping but the review has turned into far broader push to broaden Clare County Council’s financial net and bring in extra revenue streams, I’m not sure it was properly thought out”.
“I understand from the Council’s point of view that it is a never-ending loaves and fishes, the lists of demands is always increasing, we are campaigning to get an increase in the amount of roads improved, we are always short of litter pickers and lifeguards, I understand that the demand on the Council are endless. This is an attempt to widen the financial base, we are relying on the local property tax, the Cliffs of Moher, rate payers and parking charges, this is an attempt to broaden the income base, there doesn’t seem to be an appetite to foist the issue on ratepayers, I understand where they are coming from but the totality of what is proposed went beyond what anybody thought was acceptable,” the Lahinch postmaster added.
Following on from the deadline of public submissions at the end of August, a report will be compiled based on the feedback. “The feedback will be collated and proposed to us at a workshop, I don’t foresee the charges being put before a Municipal District meeting in the format they went out in previously because they won’t get the support”.
