Town Centre Traders Are Disadvantaged Over Pay Parking Laws

Issued : Thursday 5 March, 2015

Many businesses in the town centre of Drogheda are suffering because of restrictive pay parking laws that inhibit people from choosing to shop in the town centre and instead choose to visit out of town retail centres according to local councillor Pio Smith.

Cllr Smith has put forward a motion for the April Drogheda BoroughMunicipal District meeting calling for a Blue Zone or short term parking system to be introduced in Drogheda on a trial basis.

“The current pay parking system in Drogheda is acting as a disencentive for people to park in the town therefore we have to look at an alternative model.In many European countries a Blue Zone parking system is used that would allow motorists to park free for one hour between 9am to 12 noon and 2pm to 5pm Monday to Saturday.Before parking in a Blue Zone the motorist can obtain a special disc from a nearby shop or Garda Station free of charge and fill in the date and time of arrival and then display it on the dashboard of the car closest to the kerb. If a motorist stays longer than the hour then they will be fined.

Currently many people are visiting out of town shopping centres because of the ease of parking and the fact that there are no parking levies applied on these premises.This in my opinion is an unfair advantage over traders operating in the town centre. We have seen at Christmas time that when the parking charges are relaxed  business tends to increase. This effect has been shown in Drogheda,Swords and other towns with pay parking.If we have a higher turnover of motorists then council revenues from parking charges should not suffer significantly”