Funding agreed to improve ‘third world’ Westport car parks

PARTIAL funding has been agreed for a programme of works on a car park in Westport where a hair salon had its glass front shattered by a concrete block.

Staff at LS Hair Westport on Upper Mill Street were left ‘traumatised’ after a car hit a concrete block which smashed into their salon adjoining Mill Street Car Park.

Eight people were on the premises, but nobody was hurt during the incident. Emergency services attended the scene and a large section of the car park was closed off. The car park reopened later that day.

Lynda McNally, owner and CEO of LS Hair Westport, said that the concrete lego block landed within ‘inches’ of a client during the incident.

Ms McNally said that she and her staff are ‘refusing’ to come back to work since the incident.

“We have 17 stations, but six of them are at the window … there were eight people in the salon at the time, if there was any other day there could have been 20 people in-house,” she said on Midwest Radio following the incident.

“The last time it happened, it took us five months of crying out to the council to get something in so finally they put in some concrete lego blocks, which shouldn’t have taken five months to put in.

“I can’t believe we’ve fallen on deaf ears with the town council. We’ve expressed that we don’t feel safe in the building, there’s a hill leading down into the front of our salon. Now they would lose ten car parking spaces there but the car park can continue to operate and generate €84,000 a year without that hill in use, but they are refusing.”

Local county councillor Peter Flynn said the staff had been left ‘traumatised’ by the incident.

“We were lucky in some ways that nobody was badly injured, or at worse killed. Thirteen people are out of jobs today because of the situation,” Cllr Flynn said on Midwest Radio.

The Fine Gael councillor demanded a programme of works that will address long-standing issues with the council-operated Mill Street and James Street Car parks.

Cllr Flynn said that local representatives would suspend all car parking charges in Westport unless this was agreed by Monday evening.

Yesterday (Monday), members of Westport Belmullet Municipal District agreed not to suspend car parking charges after funding was pledged for a programme of works at both car parks.

Tender

SÉAMUS Ó Mongáin, Head of Westport-Belmullet Municipal District, said the council were ‘close to releasing a tender to carry out some work’ in the coming weeks on the James Street car park, which is prone to flooding during wet weather. He estimated that the works would be completed by Easter ‘depending on the availability of the contractors’.

“The budget will then allow us to carry out some of the works on the Mill Street car park, and we will progress that thereafter,” Mr Ó Mongáin told Monday’s meeting of Westport-Belmullet Municipal District.

Local representatives have lamented the state of the local authority car parks on several occasions.

Councillors were previously told that funding had been allocated for so-called ‘essential maintenance’ work on the Mill Street car park.

Cllr Flynn welcomed the latest commitment to a programme of works on the car parks, which he described as being ‘third world’ compared to other car parks in Mayo.

Cllr Brendan Mulroy (Fianna Fáil) said a footpath needed to be put in place in Mill Street car park to improve safety for pedestrians.