Call for council to ‘take back ownership’ of Mallow pay parking

THE thorny issue of pay-parking in Mallow has once again come under the spotlight, with local Labour TD Seán Sherlock reiterating a call for it to come under the control of Cork County Council.

The call has come after figures obtained under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request showed that more than €100,000 had been paid to APCOA, the private operators of the scheme, over the first seven months of this year.

Earlier this year figures published by The Corkman revealed that the company had raked in more than €1.3 million between the years 2014 and 2018.

Broken down annually, the payments were: €323,711 in 2014; €336,411.37 (2015); €209,248.08 (2016); €242,545.89 (2017) and €204,602.20 (2018).

At the time, James Kennedy, the then Mallow area Labour candidate for Cork County Council who has since been elected to the authority, branded the amount as “bordering on the obscene”.

“This is Mallow money that is leaving Mallow, at a time when we badly need such funds for reinvestment purposes,” he said.

He vowed, if elected to the council, to “fight tooth and nail” to ensure the APCOA contract, which expires in January of next year, is not renewed, and the authority begins to operate the management of pay parking in Mallow once again.

Speaking this week, Deputy Sherlock backed up this sentiment, calling on the council to “take back ownership of the pay parking regime in Mallow”.

“I’m concerned that the payments for August and September of this year have not been added up. So the loss of revenue to the town is even greater,” said Deputy Sherlock.

“As I understand it, this contract is up for renewal in January. The people of Mallow are asking for there to be consistency. Patience with the current regime is lost. It’s killing any positive sentiment that is being generated by businesses that operate in the town centre,” he added.