An Enniscorthy business man is calling for further discussions on the Enniscorthy Town Centre First plan. Matt Ronan a member of the Enniscorthy Business Association says he speaks everyday to business owners and customers who are the life blood of Enniscorthy and the plan does not suit them
According to Mr. Ronan the customers of Enniscorthy Town who spend their euros in the town need to be represented
He said that the elderly population are particularly challenged by the hills of Enniscorthy. Now he said this plan will push people further away from the town to park their cars and force people to walk up more hills to get to the shops. Not to mention the walking back down the hills with shopping bags afterwards.
The existing plan will see an upgrade of Market Square, Main Street, Castle Street and Castle Hill. There will be phased pedestrianization of Market Square and Castle Hill with restrictions on through traffic. Expansion of footpaths and traffic control measures in Main Street, including one-way traffic and improved public spaces on Island Road ensure accessible parking and access
for individuals with disabilities.
The businessman was reflecting on last Mondays Council meeting where he said he had two major insights. Number one, it was the chief planner stating that Enniscorthy, in a sense, had too much
traffic going on in the centre of it. Number two, he declared that the last thing that Enniscorthy needed was more car parking, because that was just going to attract more cars into the town.
And that was going to be a problem of that.
Speaking to Alan Corcoran on Morning Mix Matt said, “If the whole purpose of this scheme is for to make small rural Irish towns more vibrant, that’s why the money is there, is to have a resurgence of vibrancy into small towns. Now, you cannot do that by removing car parking from the town and then removing access to the town. You can talk all day about access, but if you take access out, which is what this plan does, as it removes the ability to move through the centre of town, diverts it down to a junction where it has been tried before and abjectly failed.
So you create a cul-de-sac, then you create a traffic stagnation, and then people will just avoid the centre altogether.”
Matt said he compiled a survey whereby fliers were sent out to customers asking if they had to prioritize pedestrianisation or parking which would they choose and 90% plus people came back and said they wanted more parking.
When asked if he saw any positives to the plan Matt said what he saw was a waste of public money
He said, “I’ll tell you what I see when I look at this plan, Alan. I see the Dail bike shed, which is an utter waste of public money inappropriately spent”
So what would Matt do differently?
As an Enniscorthy man who has based his career in the town for the past 30 years he said it would be easy to know how to spend the money
He would take the Murphy Floods site and put a multi storey car park in there and allow people to park stress free in the heart of the town.
He said, “creating wider footpaths and giving us drawings which show awnings and people having cappuccinos underneath them, that’s a pipe dream. That’s suitable for Portugal, perhaps, but it’s certainly not as suitable for Enniscorthy in November. That will make zero difference to the vibrancy of the town, but what you have done is you’ve surgically removed 60 car parking spaces, you’ve pushed people 10 and 5 minutes away of walking to get there. Now, can you imagine, a wet November day, you’ve got somebody who doesn’t have fantastic mobility, maybe a little bit of arthritis in one of their knees, and they’re being forced to walk up steep hills and try to get contained by all of that. It’s an absolute nonsense and as I say, the waste of public money is not the smallest
of my concerns in this, but it’s certainly right up there.
Matt said he hopes that further discussions will take place regarding this matter and a proper willingness on both sides to sit down.
