Cars blocking Carrick-on-Suir car park entrance preventing refuse trucks from collecting waste

Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District has come under pressure to do more to stop motorists blocking a Carrick-on-Suir car park entrance with their parked vehicles preventing refuse trucks collecting rubbish from the town's hotel and some homes.

Fianna Fáil councillor Kieran Bourke highlighted at the district’s monthly meeting the difficulties people parking at the quayside entrance to Strand Lane Car Park are causing.

He said the Carraig Hotel, which was paying huge commercial rates to the council, and residents living around the Strand Car Park, were having difficulty getting their waste collected due to these cars blocking the car park entrance.

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The Carrick-on-Suir councillor complained that refuse collection truck went there on three different days in one week to try and collect waste but couldn’t get access because people were allowed to park their vehicles “willy, nilly” around the car park entrance.

Cllr Bourke said he contacted District Administrator Marie O’Gorman about the issue and the traffic warden had gone down there.

He outlined that the registration numbers of the offending motorists were taken and fines were issued.

But they were still in the same position as the obstructive parking was continuing and was being carried out by the same perpetrators.

“To your credit Marie, you acted every time (you were contacted) but it’s not working.”

He appealed to the council to take further action to tackle this problem because this hotel business and residents in that area were suffering.

“We have a duty to provide proper access to the Strand Car Park,” he declared.

He suggested the council have the area policed to prevent people parking at the entrance and call an emergency meeting of the district’s councillors to pass new parking by-laws to deal with the problem.

District Engineer Willie Corby replied that he hadn’t been aware of this problem about access to the Strand Lane Car Park.

He believed by-laws were needed to tackle it and indicated he would visit the car park to check out the situation.

Ms O’Gorman, meanwhile, explained the council was waiting for the Carrickbeg Active Travel Scheme to be approved funding before adapting new parking by-laws for the town.

She explained the access point into Strand Lane Car Park was not included in the town’s current parking by-laws as there were no official parking spaces there.

Draft by-laws were almost finalised and she indicated the council intends including a new by-law that would allow for the clamping of vehicles blocking the entrance to this car park.

Cllr Bourke appealed to council management to do something in the “short-term” until the by-laws were passed to stop the obstruction of the car park entrance due to the difficulties the hotel was having getting its industrial size waste bins collected.

He pointed out the refuse collection company was also very frustrated with the disruption being caused to its daily schedule.

Ms O’Gorman promised to “keep an eye” on the car park entrance and the council would discuss the issue with the hotel and waste collection provider.

She believed the solution was a new by-law permitting the clamping of cars blocking the car park entrance. Requiring offending motorists to pay €100 to €120 to get their car unclamped would “put manners” on them, she added.