Kevin Redmond (Meadow Court & Ashfield), Maria Perse (Lakeside Park), Grace Dunne and Trish Fusco (Meadow Court), Paddy Bracken (Patrician Avenue) and Nick Coy (Lakeside Park), some members of the newly formed committee of local residents.
16 May 2003: People power is set to take on Naas Town Council over a proposed car park for Naas Hospital to be build on a key green area.
Residents of estates near the lakes area in Naas say they will take whatever steps are necessary to prevent a planned car park being built on amenity space at the lakes for use by nurses and staff of the hospital.
The residents have written to Naas town clerk Declan Kirrane pointing out that the Council will ‘be in breach of its own 1999 Town Plan’ if it gives the go ahead for a ‘temporary’ car park on the green open space at the lakes at its next monthly meeting on Tuesday 20 May. The area is currently zoned amenity/open space and the matrix specifically excludes a car park.
A newly elected committee representing the combined groups of residents says that to alter the current zoning for the site would require a revised plan that would have to be put to the public and voted on by a two-thirds majority of councillors.
If this is not the case, they want to know what regulation allows the Council to change the plan without public consultation?
Furthermore, LAMB, (combined residents of Lakeside Park, Ashfield, Meadow Court and Ballymore Road Residents Assoc) have urged all local town councillors not to vote on the issue until the legal side is resolved.
A number of residents from the area intend being in the public gallery for next Tuesday’s Council meeting and have told all local councillors they will ‘see you there’.
The letters to the town clerk and local councillors were decided at a packed meeting of representatives of the area’s estates held in Ballycane on Tuesday night last. All three councillors who live in the area were invited to attend. Cllrs Charlie Byrne (FF) and Seamie Moore (Ind) were present. Cllr Pat O’Reilly (FG) sent his apologies saying he was against the car park at that site. He is in favour of a larger car park at the Swimming Pool field.
Cllr Charlie Byrne (left) told the meeting that the site of the proposed car park at the lakes, although maintained by Naas Town Council, is owned by Kildare County Council (as is the Swimming Pool field) and that the county manager could well say ‘it was a managerial function’ of his to help out the hospital.
Chairperson of the combined residents Maria Perse asked if the residents could wake up one morning to find a JCB on the site? She was told by Cllr Moore that ‘this would not happen’.
Cllr Byrne said the Town Council has suggested ‘all we want is a wink and a nod from you councillors and we will have machinery in there’. He said Mayor Timmy Conway is seeking a written guarantee on Tuesday from the hospital management that their nurses WILL use a lakeside car park and that the ground will eventually be returned to a green area. “If that happens on Tuesday, then your new committee won’t last too long,” he added.
A nurse who works in the hospital told the meeting that as far as she was aware there had been no consultation with nurses or staff of the hospital on the matter. She also pointed out that the proposed site is almost the same distance away from the hospital as is Ballycane car park available for hospital staff to park, but which was left mostly unused by the staff. She pointed out the impact to the environment if the tarmac goes down and is later removed. “That’s boggy ground. It will never come back right,” she warned.
Cllr Moore (pictured right) was asked how long the matter had been on the table in the Council chamber and replied: “Maybe more than two years, since the Lakelands people started to get upset.” He said it has been on the agenda every month since but ‘there isn’t a solution’. He confirmed Naas Town Council does not have any responsibility for car parking for the hospital but said ‘they are trying to solve a community parking problem in the area’.
He would support a temporary car park at the lakes if Kildare County Council provided 40 spaces at the Swimming Pool and 60 more from road widening at the hospital.
This prompted Lakeside Park resident Nick Coy to say that since he had come to live in Naas 25 years ago, ‘we’re having to pay for more and we’re getting less’. “We’re driven by decisions made by people who don’t live here, who can just breeze off,” he said. “It’s bad planning but we’re being asked to carry the can.”
An angry individual claimed the hospital should have provided its own car parking spaces. Yet another demanded: “Who wants it and who doesn’t? Who are the enemy? Name them.”
Cllr Moore replied that ‘Public enemy No 1 is probably Seamie Moore. I have to think in terms of trying to find a solution. I don’t just represent the area I live in, but the entire town. I do think it will be temporary but I can’t speak for other councillors.”
“Are you saying those councillors ‘for it’ care not a jot? They would vote on something without coming here to listen to our views?” demanded Nick Coy.
“There were choices of four different locations and a bank [of people] came down to select here,” replied Seamie Moore.
“They have no right to do this behind closed doors,” Mr Coy told him.
“They have an elected right,” returned Cllr Moore.
“That is a recipe for losing your seat at the next election,” Mr Coy admonished. He added that ‘there is a level beyond which we can’t be pushed’ and said locals are accepting ‘building going on as far as the eye can see’.
“You’re just eroding our quality of life in Naas and the lakes will be far less attractive with a dirty great car park there.” This was greeted by a round of applause.
Cllr Moore admitted: “I can’t say you’re wrong!”
“Where do you draw the line?” Nick Coy retorted. “When are you going to stop taking the little bits of green we have left?”
At this Cllr Moore urged the meeting to ‘go the extra mile if a trust can be set up and a long-term agreement reached over the car park’. “That’s the way to go,” he stated.
Equally forcefully, Maria Perse said: “It will never go back to being a green area no matter what’s put in writing.” More applause.
Donal Corcoran reminded the meeting: “We haven’t caused the hospital car parking problem. The way to solve that problem is not to make it bigger by taking away that open space which was provided for people of this town to enjoy for the last 15-20 years.” He added: “That’s our open space and we’re going to keep it that way.”
Cllr Charlie Byrne said he was present ‘as a resident and as a councillor’. He was vehemently opposed to the car park at the lakes. He said the problem was caused by the management of the Hospital and that they had admitted this at an ‘in committee’ Council meeting. He said the parking problem was caused by Kildare County Council staff not being prepared to move to new offices in Millennium Park. (The County Council HQ at St Mary’s is located beside the Hospital and the Health Board intends buying St Mary’s when the Council moves out).
A notice of motion put down by Cllr Byrne that the top of the lakes area be made a wild life habitat some months ago was agreed by a majority of councillors and Cllr Byrne said if that could now be overturned and the area made into a car park, his motion ‘means nothing at all’.
“People power is what we’re talking about,” a Lakeside Park man believed. “When you’re talking to politicians you talk numbers because that’s what they listen to, and we’re representative of this whole area.”
Other strong opinions were aired including the suggestion that the Council should not become involved in trying to solve the Hospital’s parking problem.
A man wanted the group to ‘invite all the councillors to meet our committee, face to face’. “Then you can plan your attack.”
But former Naas councillor Donal Corcoran advised: “Let them tell us they have the power to contravene the 1999 Town Plan.” He believed the Council has probably done this already by providing car parking spaces along the Ballymore Road.
Nick Coy asked the two councillors present to make the Council aware of their strong opposition to a new car park at the lakes at Tuesday’s meeting. Both agreed to do so.
Cllr Moore was then bluntly asked: “Are you in favour of this car park?”
He replied: “In the short term, yes.”
He was told that as their public representative they wanted him to change his view. He replied that he wasn’t elected just by the area in which he lives, but ‘represented the whole town’.
The meeting heard repeated criticism of the management of Naas General Hospital and it was confirmed that the hospital is seeking the return of 78 newly provided underground car spaces which it wants for storage purposes, thus reducing its stock of car parking spaces.
The meeting was also reminded that the Hospital staff had shunned the car park provided for them at Ballycane Church, even with a free shuttle bus to and from the Hospital. The question was asked: “If they wouldn’t use that, then why would they be prepared to walk down to the lakes area to park?”
Charlie Byrne said the parking problem for the hospital had arisen when Kildare County Council staff had refused to move to new offices at Millennium Park. A nurse had told him: “We won’t be parking at the lakes.” He believed a car park will only work within the hospital walls.
A Hospital nurse living in the area for 18 years said if the car park goes ahead more lights will be needed for the area and this would effect the wildlife.
Cllr Charlie Byrne wondered if there was ‘another hidden agenda’ regarding the proposal. He believed some councillors 'know something that I don’t know’. He directly asked Cllr Moore: “Has the Hospital management given a response that I don’t know about?”
Cllr Moore replied: “We met two senior people from the Hospital and I have never got off the phone since that meeting to find out how far they have gone.”
“You’re playing politics. Stop that,” he was told by an angry resident. “You’re a councillor and you’re meant to represent us! We don’t want it but you’re going to vote for it. It doesn’t make sense at all!”
Seamie Moore again replied that he didn’t just represent the area he lives in, but the whole town. He stated that ‘the Hospital have said they will provide 100 spaces for the nurses at the lakes; everything else will be chargeable to the public.”
This was news to Charlie Byrne who said after the meeting that this was information he had not been made aware of and which had not been mentioned in the Council chamber.
Another woman wondered if the residents should write to the hospital asking if they have informed their staff that they would have to park at the lakes car park.
At this, Ms Perse said the residents have already written to the Board of Management and their letter had not even been acknowledged.
Charlie Byrne then told how the Hospital management have said the nurses wanted to work in a position where they could see their cars parked. Seamie Moore agreed the management ‘have a lot to answer for’.
Another man was concerned over the safety issue regarding a car park at the proposed lake site, pictured above. (The Hospital is to the left and the Ballymore Road to the right). “Who will be the first nurse to be raped or mugged or even kidnapped or have a car stolen there?” he asked.
The residents group believe they are being asked ‘to sacrifice our little piece of open space to cover the mistakes made by the lack of good planning and mismanagement by the hospital and other authorities’.
“They indeed may have their obligations in this matter but certainly not the legal right under the current Town Plan. The powers that be should understand that we as citizens also have rights and we are prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect those same rights.”
There was further applause when a man said that if the subject comes up at Tuesday night’s Town Council meeting: ‘I want the councillors to do the job they were elected to do!’
Monthly meetings of Naas Town Council (presently being held in Kildare County Council HQ at St Mary’s just up the road from Naas Hospital) are open to the public from 7.30pm.
