Mayo councillors defer threat to introduce free car parking for Westport

Councillors in Westport have deferred a threat to introduce free parking in the town's car parks to allow the new council management to 'rectify the problem' with them.

Councillors in the Westport/Belmullet Municipal District passed a motion at the July meeting of the municipal district that they suspend car parking charges from October 7 until upgrade works in the town car parks have taken place.

Speaking at last week's monthly meeting, Cllr Peter Flynn who had proposed the motion told the council executive that no work has taken place. He also expressed frustration that since the meeting, planning permission was granted for a hostel in a building adjoining the 'substandard' James Street car park and the developer was 'absolved from any development levies'.

“This building has been vacant since 1970 and yet the most senior planner in Mayo County Council decided that the building owner should not pay any levies.

“If levies had been applied they could have been used to sort out the flooding which is quite literally five yards from this particular building and at the time the director in charge was well aware of the motion passed here. It was like giving us the two fingers to say we are not going to pay any heed to the motion we passed but also instead of giving an opportunity to put some development levy towards that car park they did the complete opposite,” he said.

The Fine Gael councillor said he would make a variation to the motion because Joanne Grehan, the new Director of Services for the MD and the new Head of the Municipal District, Seamus Ó Mongáin were new in their role.

“In fairness to yourself you are both new to the organisation and it is important we give you time to look into this further. I propose that rather than all the carparks then just the James Street car park will be the only car park free from October 7 and all the rest which will operate as normal,” he said.

Independent councillor John O'Malley was also critical of the state of the Mill Street/High Street car park and proposed for it to be included in the free parking.

However Erris-based councillor Gerry Coyle suggested that Ms Grehan and Mr Ó Mongáin be allowed time to 'get a handle' on what was going on.

“Leave it for another month or two and see what can be done. It will be better to leave it and give them a chance to come back with some arrangement on what can be done. They are barely into their roles,” he said.

Cllr Flynn said he will take his colleagues' proposal on board and agreed to suspend the motion until after Christmas. He said that if he does not receive a satisfactory response from council management, car parking in James Street and Mill Street/High Street car parks will be free from the second Monday in January.