Meathman's Diary: Terrors on the Street!

John Donohoe

Of an idle Saturday morning in Navan, when breakfast is mid-morning, more a brunch, and there’s weekend newspapers to be caught up on, a lovely spot to decamp to is the Costa café at Navan Retail Park. It’s a busy spot, lots of comings and goings from youngsters’ GAA training, people meeting for coffee, or on Sundays, there’s an after-Mass crew with the papers. In the run up to the Leaving Certificate, the St Pat’s CS lads met up with their laptops to do a bit of studying, or just some on their own in a quiet corner.

Then, if there’s a bit of shopping to be done for some homewares or electronic goods, or DIY or gardening, there’s Harry Corry, Woodies, and Currys, or Choice and Discount Chemists for household and medical needs. All at a relaxed, easy pace, as there are plenty of parking spaces and no fee to park, so no hurry to move. And the same is true on weekdays.

Contrast that with the town centre, and Watergate Street beside our offices in particular. In 2019, after Meath County Council completed a streetscaping project, I wrote in this column about how bustling the street was, how the various eateries were drawing people down, and how there were few vacant premises, while others were being refurbished.

How things have changed. It has now become a very difficult street to exist on. There seems to be two reasons for this – a continuing decrease in parking spaces in general around the town, due to the Navan 2030 projects, and the rerouting of all the town centre traffic apart from public transport through the thoroughfare. Not only is it carrying its traditional traffic, but it is also carrying all the Ludlow Street traffic coming into town, as only buses and taxis are allowed up Market Square, and there’s all the traffic that would have exited the town via Ludlow Street. This all leads to extreme blockages on Watergate Street, and the amount of daily horn blowing, especially from Bus Eireann buses who are on a schedule.

Then, there’s the blue viz brigade on patrol. Sorry – the traffic wardens. If you do get a space, you are limited to the amount of time you can spend in it. That’s not a major issue for many, but there are times when people get delayed, and there is no mercy shown. But the worst is that if you park anyway crooked at all, you are targeted. I witnessed this myself last week, when a jeep, which had a paid parking ticket on its dashboard, received a parking ticket. The sin – its rear was jutting out over part of a yellow box, a box outside a wooden gate that has not been opened in the 20 years I’ve been working on the street, and the traffic warden knew that.

Also last week, an acquaintance received a parking ticket because her car was parked slightly over a badly worn white line in the car park behind the town hall. Again, her parking was paid – there is no sense in this. I myself was ticketed because I happened to park in the same parking space twice on the one day, and they assumed I was there all day! And they go around photographing your vehicle at every angle, all uploaded to a website for you to view on receipt of your fine. Very helpful! Oh you can appeal it, they say, as they - and the council (happily ensconced out in Buvinda House with their big car park)– wash their hands of it to the APCOA Parking firm.

Is it any wonder stores like Callan an Harte and Joyce Interiors, long established businesses in the town, have decided that enough is enough.