'Athboy parking problems ‘killing local business’

The lack of parking facilities in Athboy “is killing local business” particularly in the run up to Christmas.

Shoppers often drive up and down the town searching for somewhere to park, before moving on elsewhere, according to local businesses.

Cllr David Gilroy raised the issue at a meeting of Kells Municipal Council last week where he called on the council to “engage, as a matter of urgency, with all relevant landowners in Athboy to address the serious shortage of public parking in the town, with a view to securing the purchase of suitable lands for the provision of additional public parking facilities.”

Local businessman, Jim Bird, said the lack of parking in the town was atrocious and nothing was being done about it.

“It is very concerning for businesses. Shoppers have told me that they would shop in Athboy, but cannot get parking. They have driven up and down the street a couple of times, but then drive on to other towns.

“We must be the only town in Meath that doesn't have our own council car park. We are losing business to other towns.

“We depend on the generosity of businesses with their own parking and the church carpark is full all day. The council believes the buses should stop at the church car park, but if they do, we'll lose more parking spaces. He said one of the main problems is that some people abandon their cars in the town all day.

“Our staff park off street, but there are some who insist on parking outside their own premises all day and that is an issue. “I believe there should be some type of restricted parking to prevent this, but we don't want paid parking,” he said.

“We have been told it will be dealt with in the proposed Public Realm plan but that has been kicked down the road for too long. I'll probably be dead and gone before that happens. It isn't trees we want, but parking spaces. You can make it as pretty as you want, but we don't want to end up with a dead town centre like in Drogheda,” Mr Bird said.

At last week's meeting, Cllr Gilroy was told the issue of parking facilities would be considered as part of the Public Realm process for the town.

“The public realm plan is a long time coming. We have been talking about it since 2016. The public realm plan process for other towns started much later than this, but are further advanced.

“We need more parking facilities and there are parcels of vacant land that could be used,” he said.

“The lack of parking in Athboy is an ongoing issue. The town is full. There are people who park on the street all day, despite the fact that they are encouraged not to.

“We rely on the generosity of private individuals to provide parking - the Credit Union, the Darnley Hotel, the Medical Centre and Brogans, but we really need to provide our own parking facilities.” he said.