Cllr. Angela Feeney recently attended a meeting organised by Kilcock business owners held at the Rye River Café. She met with business owners, their employees and concerned local residents who are very frustrated with the current parking arrangements in their town. Cllr. Feeney explained that “at the moment, there is no all-day parking available in Kilcock, parking is limited to two hours so if you want to work or do business in the town, this is problematic. There is a limited number of free parking spaces at Kilcock train station but as you can imagine, they are in huge demand and are usually full by 7 a.m.”
“There had been a park and ride or park and stride facility available, at a daily rate of €3 that was located near Lidl but that closed last year. That facility is now lying there unused and in fact very unsightly too”. This is why Cllr. Feeney and other councillors submitted a joint motion at the October Municipal District Council meeting about the issue and called for the reopening of the previous park and ride parking facility in the town.
The Council said the uptake on that park and ride facility was low. However, Feeney said that some of that period of use was during Covid. Cllr. Feeney is calling on the Council to contact the landowner about reopening the facility. “That would resolve the issue straight away and really help businesses and workers as well as visitors to the town especially for the lead-up to Christmas, when they need all the help that they can get”.
Cllr. Feeney welcomed the response from the Council. “I am happy to hear that the Council has agreed to contact the landowner and it would be great to have a positive outcome from that discussion. If not, another potential site needs to be identified for this purpose, and at that meeting with the local business community, there were suggestions such as the old courthouse site or the old AIB building. So, there are some alternatives there, either way, something has to be done”.
“The first step, contacting the landowner and getting cracking on plan A. Plan B is an alternative site and finally, The next step is to review the parking bye laws and change the current model to a better model such as the arrangement in Maynooth which works very well. That route is more prolonged and takes more time because there has to be a period of public consultation. So my hope is that Plan A works and that the landowner is agreeable to reopen the Park and Ride facility”.