Time to give 'pay parking' the ticket in Athy

THIS is not so much an Eye on the Past but rather an 'Eye on the Present and the Future'. I am sitting at my desk somewhat frustrated at Kildare County Council’s failure to recognise the need for action on the parking dilemma which afflicts the town of Athy. 

The paid parking policy adopted by the council some years ago is too restrictive for the commercial life of a town which needs encouragement to be revitalised.

I cannot understand why the council, which is financed by rates, property tax and income tax paid by shopkeepers and others, finds it necessary to impose parking charges on the would-be customers of those same shopkeepers.

There are too many vacant commercial premises in our town’s centre. The council needs to review its parking policy and help rejuvenate our town which has lost out to nearby towns such as Carlow, Portlaoise and Newbridge.

Athy has lost out to these neighbouring towns not because, as some anonymous social media contributors claim, Dunnes, Tesco etc. were stopped by Athy’s anchor tenant from setting up in the town.

That nonsensical claim has been around for years, touted by thoughtless individuals whose contribution to the development of our town leaves much to be desired.

Nobody has objected to the big commercial businesses moving to Athy. They simply were and are not interested because our population numbers fall far behind that of Newbridge, Carlow and Portlaoise.

Looking back one hundred years ago, we can discover the busy town centre of Athy served by forty public houses, many small grocery shops and a wide variety of businesses, all concentrated for the most part on the main streets.

The population of Athy then was in the region of four thousand, a figure which had not altered since the end of the Great Famine.

Athy then was a town without any great industry and many of the unemployed men and women without the prospect of work in their hometown took the emigrant boats to England or America.

Yet the town centre was very much alive up to 40 years ago with few, if any, vacant premises to be seen. What has changed in the meantime?

It’s the spread of car ownership to almost every local household. The potential shoppers are now able to drive a reasonable distance to do their shopping, hence the attraction of nearby towns.

What did Athy, or more importantly Kildare County Council, do to correct this? Nothing, instead the council inflicts parking fees on shoppers, thereby discouraging them from stopping and shopping in the independent shops on our main streets.

I recognise that the three supermarkets in town provide free parking facilities, but the parking fees imposed by the council serve to discourage potential shoppers from doing business with the independent shops.

I can fully understand why, up to two years ago, parking fees were cancelled in December so we could all enjoy free parking for Christmas shopping. I see in last week’s Kildare Nationalist that the county council spent almost €300,000 on operating paid parking last year in the Athy Municipal District.

Is that, I wonder, a payment to the company that issues the parking tickets and fines? It is claimed that the council were left with a budgetary surplus of €48,357. If these figures are correct, there is no good reason why the paid parking should be continued.

The county council representatives have not shown leadership when it comes to paid parking. They have accepted without question the directions of the council officials, and their failure to display independent thought and judgement will have disappointed many of us.

It has to be acknowledged that parking facilities throughout the town are scarcer than they were some time ago, given the creation of the town’s plaza and the huge success of the Shackleton Experience which opened in mid-October with expectations of 20,000 visitors in its first year.

In the three months it has been open it has achieved approximately one third of that number already, many of whom travelled to Athy by car or public transport.

I have previously written of the need and opportunity to extend parking facilities near the museum, but again Kildare County Council shows no appetite to make a move to acquire the lands in question.

There is an urgent need for the public representatives on Kildare County Council to do whatever is necessary to start the regeneration of Athy’s commercial life.

This, in my opinion, requires the cancellation of the present parking regulations and their replacement by two hours free parking, with appropriate payment thereafter. It will also require adequate parking for the many visitors coming to the Shackleton Experience.

The Shackleton Experience will continue to make Athy an attractive destination for out-of-town visitors and the county council must do whatever is necessary to encourage visitors.