*Cluain Airne. Photograph: Joe Buckley
SHANNON RESIDENTS are not served with a sufficient amount of parking spaces at housing estates across the town, county councillors have stressed.
In a proposal before the Shannon Municipal District, Cllr Pat O’Gorman (FF) requested for consideration on “providing community car parking spaces in the older areas of Shannon Town where these houses were developed before widespread car ownership”.
Additional parking has been provided in Cluain Airne, acting senior executive engineer Caimin Dillon flagged. “Other suitable locations in Shannon will be assessed with a view to the provision of additional parking subject to funding”.
Lack of parking has been raised in all corners of the county, Cllr O’Gorman highlighted. “I was in Drumgeely at a couple of house calls, two houses had EV cars and they have to park on the road, they can’t charge them without running the charger out on footpath out onto the road”. He questioned if a policy could be devised to allow for walls to be knocked so that cars could instead be left in front of the houses, “We’re the first MD to have a dog park so we could be the first roll this out”.
More needs to be done to make life easier for owners of electric vehicles, Cllr O’Gorman felt, “In the UK, to alleviate issue of EV charging they are cutting physical chargers out of the footpath”. He said councillors are ending up using their General Municipal Allocation (GMA) to fund the provision of more spaces instead of the Council giving the funds.
EV charging points and car parking spaces “are badly needed” in Shannon, Cllr Tony Mulcahy (FG) stressed. “In Cronan Lawn, there is 20ft of grass in front of the houses before you get to the footpath, there is no grass like that in Ennis, it is the size of a hurling field and you can play a match inside of it and that is only one strip of grass”. He added, “We need to look at more group parking and more charging points. We have very few fronts which come out onto the road in the town”.
Cathaoirleach of the Shannon MD, Cllr John Crowe (FG) told the meeting that a recently constructed estate featured on television where chargers were brought across the road “but they were ordered to take them down because they were illegal, a lot has to be done to sort them out”.
GMA was used by Cllr Michael Begley (IND) to get five new parking spaces in the Derryvinna estate in Clonlara, he advised his colleagues. Off-street parking has been mooted for Clarecastle claimed Cllr David Griffin (FF) who suggested following a similar approach.
This issue will only grow, Cllr James Ryan (SF) predicted “because of the way housing is you have people who don’t move out, they have cars but nowhere to go so there will be more pressure to get spaces”.
Discussions could be held with ESB to put in charging points in private estates, Cllr Mulcahy believed, “they will be everywhere”. Bunratty Castle Hotel has proviced EV charging points following its renovation, Cllr O’Gorman observed, “They are at the old hotel in Bunratty which has been made new. People want to charge them at home overnight, it is a quarter of a price to do it”.
