Car parking charge increases are among a number of parking changes coming to Kilkenny City.
An increase to the hourly rate of parking will be introduced from €1.30 to €2 an hour.
It follows a vote from councillors at the Kilkenny City Municipal District meeting last Friday.
Speaking on KCLR LIVE, Green Party Councillor Maria Dollard outlined why the changes need to be implemented:
“It was done for a number of reasons, right? So we have a problem in Kilkenny, like a lot of places with congestion and lots of cars coming into the town that don’t need to be there,” said Maria.
“That was one reason, climate action is another reason that we have to review how we manage parking spaces around the town because parking a car for long periods of time in a very kind of busy area is not the best use of that car parking space,” she added.
Meanwhile, Mayor David Fitzgerald voted against the proposals, he said changes to the city centre should be delayed:
“We have a new transport plan about to be adopted, and we should delay all changes to the city centre until we have a long-term strategy in place,” said David.
“Instead, what we’ve done is we put in these piecemeal changes, which no matter how you dress it up or whether you agree with my percentage calculation or otherwise, no matter how you dress it up, it is an increase in real terms for ordinary people”.
“But parking charges are going up in the middle of a cost of living crisis, and in my view, that’s the wrong decision by local government,” he added.
