New parking measures to benefit city centre traders

Following the controversial ban on traffic on St Patrick’s St in Cork, Cork City Council yesterday announced a suite of measures to benefit city centre businesses.

The measures include cheaper parking in two city centre carparks and free use of the Black Ash Park and Ride facility at certain hours for six days of the week.

The measures were announced following a meeting on Wednesday between business representatives and Cork City Council’s Chief Executive Ann Doherty. The meeting was held to discuss the effects of the introduction of new traffic arrangements on the street since 27 March.

Speaking yesterday, Ann Doherty said: “We met yesterday with representatives of City businesses and listened to difficulties that they outlined. In response, I undertook to examine ways in which we could support city centre traders as the latest phase of the City Centre Movement Strategy is implemented.

“Throughout today, we have been working on putting together a package of measures, and I am happy to confirm that the City Council will be introducing targeted parking incentives from tomorrow (13 April).”

Cork City Council will be offering reduced parking charges as follows:

- From 12 noon, customers can use the Black Ash Park and Ride facility, Kinsale Road free of charge, six days a week, with buses running every 15 minutes including Saturday.

- From 12am – 6pm in both North Main Street and Paul Street, customers will get four hours parking for the price of two hours that day. The offer runs for seven days of the week.

“Cork city centre has a very special offering and remains fully open and accessible as it goes through a period of change, investment and improvement. We are also putting a marketing campaign in place from next week. The City Council will continue to engage with the business interests and thanks people for their support and patience,” said the Chief Executive.

Labour Party Local Area Representative John Maher has called for Cork City Council to review and re-engage with all businesses in the city centre.

“The actions of City Hall have far ranging impacts, as the recent changes to traffic movement have shown,” said Mr Maher.

“I’m glad to see a new round of incentives on parking coming in, something I and my colleagues in the Labour Party in Cork have been calling for for some time. However, these incentives should have pre-dated any traffic management changes. It signals to me that there was little to no thought put into the impacts of decisions on traders and their employees. These businesses are the lifeblood of cork city and deserve far better.”