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DUNGANNON councillors have renew calls for on-street parking in the town to be extended to two-hours.
DUP councillor, Clement Cuthbertson, raised the issue at a meeting of Mid Ulster District Council’s Environment Committee.
“A request has come from the traders through the Council in relation to on-street car parking in Dungannon, to change it from one hour to two-hour parking.
“As far as I know, DfI Roads have done their initial door-knocking exercise, and they spoke to businesses and people that’ll be affected, and I think they’ll probably be moving on straight then to the legal side of it, in relation to the public consultation, if they haven’t already done that.
“Has the Council done everything that we should be doing? Have we responded to that? Have we put it in writing that we’re in support of the two-hour on-street car parking?
“I just want to be sure that we’ve done what we’re required to do.”
Deputy Chief executive, Anne-Marie Campbell clarified the current position as follows: “I just got an update today based on the query that came in.
“So, basically, the council officers are working closely with the DfI officials, and in fact they were at a meeting today.
“They’ve done the first stage of the consultation, a letter-drop to all the businesses,
“And basically, they were waiting on a letter or an email coming from the Dungannon traders back to DfI, to allow the second stage of the consultation to happen.
“My understanding is that email has come through, and that will allow then DfI to move to the next stage.
“But at this stage, Council is working very closely with DfI, and there’s nothing that we have to do at this point in time to facilitate the process going forward.”
Committee deputy Chairwoman, Councillor Deirdre Varsani confirmed that the matter was being progressed: “My understanding is that Councillor Dominic Molloy and myself had proposed that a letter was written to the Department in February of last year.
“And then we had a response back which outlined that they were moving forward with the next steps.
“We then understood that maybe two months ago, the letters were given out all around the affected businesses and streets in Dungannon, because it’s not every street, it’s only a certain number of streets.
“So, all the information that we were getting back since February was that things were moving, not at the pace that we would like it to, but that it is moving forward.”
Concluding, the committee chair asked for any update from DfI Roads to be passed on to the Environment Committee.
