Call to increase free pre-Christmas parking in Tipperary towns shot down by county council

A councillor’s call for more flexibility to increase the length of time for free town centre parking in the run up to Christmas was shot down at Tipperary County Council’s 2023 budget meeting.

Independent Cllr Jim Ryan appealed to the council to give Municipal Districts discretion next year to increase free pre-Christmas parking to up to an hour to help boost business for traders, who were going through a difficult time.

“I think a lot of traders would be happy if you allowed that,” the Thurles councillor told the budget meeting.

Clonmel Cllr Pat English said he agreed with Cllr Ryan that Municipal Districts should have flexibility to provide extra free parking at Christmas time.

But the council’s Director of Roads Marcus O’Connor firmly rejected the proposal.

“It’s a bad idea now and will be a bad idea next year,” he declared.

Mr O’Connor explained that the whole point of pay parking was to maximise parking turnover.

The council introduced free parking in town centres during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

But when the towns became busy again and people started coming back into towns, it was the commercial businesses who came to the council asking for pay parking to be enforced again to increase the turnover of parking spaces.

Mr O’Connor pointed out that every town in the county has some sort of arrangement for free parking and that will continue but having long periods of free parking was counterproductive.

“It will result in less opportunity for people to get to shops,” he added.