Dungannon: two hours on-street car parking request under consideration by Department for Infrastructure
Mid Ulster Councillor Dominic Molloy has welcomed correspondence from the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) confirming that a request to allow two hours of on-street car parking is going to be considered.
However, as the consultation process will only start “in the coming weeks”, the Dungannon representative is anxious to keep lobbying on the issue.
In his letter to Council Chairman, Councillor Eugene McConnell, then DfI Minister John O’Dowd stated: “Thank you for your letter (…) on the request to amend the existing parking restrictions in Dungannon, and asking for a time line from my department to complete a formal consultation.
“The consultation and legislative process for changing parking restrictions are resource-intensive in terms of staff time, and the effort needed to take a scheme forward to implementation.
“The local Network Development team will contact the council in the coming weeks to seek a collaborative approach to progressing the consultation process in 2025.”
Speaking at last Thursday’s (February 27) monthly meeting of Mid Ulster District Council, the Sinn Féin councillor said he was anxious to expedite proceedings.
“In the correspondence back from DfI around on-street car-parking, I know they have indicated that they will formulate a response [and will] start to take some action in a number of weeks,” he said.
“But just to keep it on the agenda, if we can push back again if we haven’t received a response by the next monthly meeting, [and] contact him again to keep it on the agenda.”
Cllr McConnell replied: “Fair enough, that can be done.”
Councillor Deirdre Varsani (Sinn Féin, Dungannon DEA) expressed the hope that other towns and villages would also push for their own on-street car-parking restrictions to be amended: “It’s very welcome that the letter says we will be contacted in the coming weeks with regard to the on-street car-parking.
“But I think also what would be very interesting to see is that we all, for our own areas, and the towns and villages, start to develop a plan whereby we try to help re-motivate people to come into the town centres.
“And we do think that the on-street parking, the longer parking as is available in Cookstown, could be a very valuable part of that.
“But can I suggest that we also have a working group that could focus specifically on getting more footfall into the towns and villages.”
Cllr Varsani’s request was referred to the Development Committee, due to meet on March 13, for further consideration.
François Vincent, Local Democracy Reporter