An open letter to Kilkenny County Council, Kilkenny GAA and Kilkenny Gardai
Dear Superintendent, Kilkenny County Council CEO and Chairman of Kilkenny County Board.
We all love hurling and we are blessed to have a facility like Nowlan Park on our door steps but the lack of regard for residents in the surrounding areas is simply unacceptable and has to change.
At this stage, there is no excuse for the chaotic scenes we saw on Saturday and almost every big game before it.
We are just 3 years away from Nowlan Park’s centennial year – how long does it take to get on top of traffic and parking management? Maybe another hundred years?
We all know where the indiscriminate parking takes place. We’ve seen it more than a thousand times. There’s hundreds of photos and videos online, possibly the best recce you could ask for.
As usual on match day, cars will be parked on every grass margin available, if you want to visit a deceased loved one in St Kieran’s cemetery the car park will be full of match goers cars, if you own a business in the Hebron industrial estate you will be lucky if you can get in or out of it, if you live on O’Loughlin Road or in Assumption Place, Hebron Park, Ossory Park, Bishop Birch Place or any of the surrounding areas, you will be lucky if you can get in or out of your home, you will probably have someone blocking your entrance and god help you if you need an emergency service like an ambulance.
It’s not just the immediate vicinity either, even the green area in Newpark is abused, lines of cars parked illegally up and down the ring road, cars drive over the double yellow lines on Pennefeather Road and park on the grass margin and the list goes on. It’s a familiar list of problems because it’s the same list every time and has been for decades.
So why, if we all know exactly what will happen on match days, why is it allowed to happen? Why is the blind eye turned? Why is every car parked on a grass verge or abandoned in front of a drive way, not given a ticket? Why does Kilkenny County Council not put in physical obstructions like wooden stakes to stop illegal parking and protect the green areas? Why doesn’t the GAA take action? The mind boggles.
Every car parked illegally should get a ticket and the money from every ticket should be spent on improving the local area in consultation with residents that have tolerated this for years.
Surely, between Kilkenny County Council, Kilkenny GAA and Kilkenny Gardai, three of the biggest and most respected organisations in the County, a solution can be found.
Forgive my anger, but after decades of being ignored, surely my anger and that of almost every local resident in the area, is as expected as the parking issues at the next match.
Why are we being ignored? Why are so many local residents being ignored? Why are we, as elected public representatives being ignored?
We want answers, we want action, we want a plan and not just the same plan that is given to us every time we get angry about this issue, we want a plan that will be forcefully implemented on a permanent basis – a plan that addresses all of these issues for local residents and allows us all to enjoy our hurling without the inexcusable poor management of traffic and parking.
It’s a simple ask and one that must not be ignored anymore!
Please, on behalf of all of the local residents, take action now.
Yours in hope,
Andrew McGuinness
