Tipperary parking charges remain unequal 11 years after council merger
Eleven years after the merger of North and South Tipperary County Councils, towns across the county still charge wildly different parking fees—a situation described as ‘extremely complicated’ by local officials.
At the September meeting of the Clonmel Borough District, Mayor of Clonmel councillor Pat English sought an update on the process of making the cost of parking more uniform across the county.
Cllr English said that Clonmel is suffering from the lack of a harmonised pricing system, and that people don’t have enough free parking time in the town.
"Clonmel is suffering because of free parking time, and the charges that we’re being charged here in town. 11 years is way too long. There must be something more serious than that holding it up,” he said.
In response to Cllr English, a representative from the district said that the situation is complex and will take time to work through.
"There’s a reason why we’re 11 years amalgamated and this hasn’t been dealt with, because it’s extremely complicated. There’s nine towns that charge, and we’re trying to bring all that together into a single harmonised structure,” councillors were told.
However, Fianna Fáil councillor Siobhán Ambrose said that other charges had been realigned since the council was amalgamated, and suggested that in reality, the issue is simple.
"It’s not rocket science why this is being kicked to touch, because obviously, there are areas around the county, like Clonmel, that are paying more than others, but I think in the interest of fairness, it’s no longer sustainable to be coming back saying there’s difficult issues,” Cllr Ambrose hit out.
"It’s rather straightforward, it has to be across the board for everybody, and I think it’s very unfair that it’s being kicked to touch and we’re being told it’s very intricate, it’s not really.
"We could do it with commercial rates, which was a hot potato, and similarly we did it with charges in respect of internments in graveyards, I don’t see why we don’t have a timeline as to when this is going to be finalised,” she added.
Councillor Richie Molloy said that 30 minutes of free parking just wasn’t enough, and that the attitude is for people to get out of town as quickly as possible, which is impacting businesses.
"Businesspeople will tell you, you’re trying to encourage people to come into the town, and there’s hundreds of parents dropping off children to schools in town in the morning, and the perception all the time is ‘get out of town fast’ in case you’re going to incur a parking ticket.
"While I appreciate there’s a half an hour free in Mary Street car park, but a half an hour is very tight I always think, and when you look at towns like Cahir that have an hour or two hours free parking,” Cllr Molloy said.
"We’ve been saying this for a good number of years now, and there’s been no change, a half an hour in Mary Street is okay, but you won’t do very much in a half an hour,” he added.