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In the next few weeks, according to documentation Newry.ie has had sight of, Newry Mourne and Down District Council is set to lodge a planning application that will ultimately remove free parking at North Street in the city centre.
The Council’s plan is to replace the busy car park, used day and daily by city centre workers, the business community and others, with its own 300 space formalised ‘Pay & Display’ car park on a portion of the site in a lease agreement with the Department of Communities who own the land.
On the back of a recent 10.4% business rates rise, business closures with others potentially in the pipeline, this council move is the last thing Hill Street and surrounding streets traders need and will serve as another hammer blow on an already struggling part of the city centre.
The free, if informal North Street car park, crucial to city centre workers, can have anywhere up to 200 cars parked in it during week days, and there are some 70 car parked on the street in front of it daily which, potentially, could also be hit.
The free car parking at North Street is a rare relief for city centre businesses, who get little in return for their already high rates, and who still have to pay to have their bins emptied.
Its removal by the council, will also have a major impact on workers who, for anyone employed on a five-day week, working eight hours a day, will have to find over £950 a year to pay for parking at North Street
The Department for Infrastructure Roads Division has already rejected, twice, council parking plans for the site and the council’s plan to remove the free car park at North Street and replace it with its own car park appears to be the latest move in its continuing efforts to push through its controversial plans to build new council offices behind Newry Cathedral, despite public, Cathedral and business opposition.
Ratepayers will pay for free council staff car park
While on one side of the city council plans will hit Hill Street area workers and businesses, at the same time on the other side, on land beside the Leisure Centre which has two large car parks, it plans to build a new ‘free’ barrier-controlled car park on Cecil Street, for staff working in the new offices.
To add to the Cecil Street plan, the council is considering providing a shuttle service to transport staff between the new offices and Cecil Street and ratepayers will cover not only the cost of the new car park but will be left to subsidise the shuttle service.
Councillors ignoring consultant’s advice
Consultants Systra, employed by the Council to carry out a third extensive survey of city centre car parking availability, concluded - following their latest survey in November 2023 and lodged as part of the new council offices planning application earlier this year - that there is ample car parking in the city and that no car park development was required by the council.
However, that advice has been ignored by both council management and councillors alike.
Councillors stay silent
Newry.ie put the five questions below to the six Newry City Councillors: Aidan Mathers, Valerie Harte, Cathal King and Geraldine Kearns (all Sinn Féin) and the SDLP’s Doire Finn and Killian Feehan and challenged them to explain whose needs they were serving.
Their responses…Not one councillor acknowledged the questions, never mind answer them.
Q: As a Newry City councillor, do you support removing free car parking at North Street and further burdening local businesses and workers with parking charges at this site?
Q: If you support the plan to remove free parking at North Street and replace it with a money earner for the council - a pay and display car park - please explain exactly why?
Q: Do you support the idea of city centre business ratepayers (and domestic ratepayers) subsidising free car parking for council staff at Cecil Street, as well as back and forth transport, while at the same time city centre workers will be denied free parking at North Street?
Q: Do you consider it fair that ratepayers should subsidise building and servicing a free car park for Council staff at Cecil Street?
Q: Considering the pressure Newry City Centre businesses are under - whose needs matter more, those of the city centre business community and its workers, or the Council?
