Free parking will cost council at least €300,000
NUMBER OF QUESTIONS ON LEGAL VALIDITY OF PARKING BYE LAWS
THE news that Louth County Council (LCC) are to suspend all parking charges in Drogheda for the next three months following legal advice came as a huge shock when it was announced by council CEO Joan Martin last Monday.
Addressing Councillors at the meeting of Drogheda Municipal District, Ms Martin said the council had been dealing with an appeal from a member of the public in relation to fines he received for parking in a council car park in Drogheda.
She said she decided to seek legal advice from Senior Counsel which revealed there are a number of problems in relation to both the on-street and car park bye laws, including the absence of commencement dates.
Ms Martin continued: ‘Consequently, I am suspending charging for parking in Drogheda pending the adoption of new Bye Laws. I anticipate that the time period required for publishing new Draft Bye Laws, allowing for submissions, adoption by Council or Borough District and the statutory commencement period will be approximately three months.’
In addition, any further action in relation to all outstanding fines in Drogheda have been suspended.
She said the loss of income to the council during this time would be in the region of €300,000.
‘Work is now underway on the preparation of new Draft Bye Laws for Drogheda and they will be published at the earliest possible date, hopefully within the coming days,’ she said.
‘In relation to the loss of income, I have examined all options including the option of bringing proposals to council for cuts in expenditure to the 2018 Budget to meet the shortfall, which would be most undesirable.
‘However, I have been able to identify a number of sources to meet the sum involved and consequently hope to be able to avoid any cuts to the 2018 Budget. My proposals on how to deal with this particular matter will be detailed at the next meeting of Louth County Council.’
A number of councillors asked whether fines issued previously would now have to be refunded.
Ms Martin said anyone who has got a fine and has not paid it will not be pursued, however she said she had ‘no plans’ to refund any retrospective parking tickets that had been issued and paid.
She said her priority was to deal with the problem and the financial implications from it ‘as quickly as possible’.
Councillor Frank Godfrey, who organised the meeting at which the bye law issues first came to light, called for parking charges in town to be capped at 50c an hour going forward.
However, Ms Martin said: ‘I can tell you any parking charges will be the same because our budget is built around these charges. We’ve established the loss will be approximately €100,000 a month so it would be a big problem if councillors failed to adopt it.’