Car park views are so wrong on every level
IT’S fair to say that the issue of the County Council’s car park at Connaughton Road has evoked much debate over the years and rightly so. The fact that many members of the Travelling community have lived in such a public space for so long, upwards on 40 years, says a lot about how we as society treat the less well off in our society.
On the one hand we are great at responding to humanitarian crises as they occur elesewhere in the world but mention any assistance for the Travelling community and it’s like we become different people.
First and foremost, in 2017 no family should be living at the side of the road or as in this case, in a public car park. The situation that pertains at Connaughton Road is nothing short of an indictment of the local authority in allowing the situation to continue for so long.
I haven’t naturally been privy to negotiations that have taken place between the council and the families located at Connaughton Road but surely a solution could have been found to house these families long before now?
It’s just beyond belief that an outcome acceptable to both sides hasn’t been found between the council and the extended McGinley family at Connaughton Road.
It has really saddened me this week to see and hear the abuse being directed at both the council and the family concerned after a new temporary toilet and shower unit was installed, replacing an older version. It’s just a basic human right, yet people are up in arms, totally misplaced anger.
The council quite rightly say the unit is to address a public health and humanitar- ian need of those living in caravans there and was an improvement on the existing one. The prefabricated unit was used elsewhere by the Council in the past but has been in storage for some time. Can people not see we have got to treat every citizen equally? I totally accept the argument that any driver using the car park shouldn’t be charged for doing so and in fairness I don’t think parking tickets are being issued in respect of drivers not displaying tickets there. The whole situation is a sorry mess and responsibility for it has to rest with the local authority. Forty years this extended family have had to live there in conditions which can only be described as primitive.
No one should be critical of atempts to provide basic facilities so that families with young children can live in some degree of