LEIXLIP, 20 August: by Bill Trapman. A Leixlip councillor has appealed for 'a reasonable approach' to the plans by local developer Bernie Cooke to build a multi-storey car park in Leixlip. Cllr Paul Kelly says car parking has been 'a crisis issue' in Leixlip for years, and this proposal could go a long way towards solving the problem.
“My priority has been to try to get a large public car park in Leixlip’s town centre, while ensuring that the residents and businesses are protected from inappropriate development," says Cllr Kelly, who noted that he has had discussions with Mr Cooke 'over many months' and has also talked on the matter with Kildare's county manager.
"II believe this proposal comes pretty close to achieving this.”
He said that the proposed car park has been specially designed to use the natural height and steep slope of the site to make sure that it will not 'tower over the town', and the developer and his architect have gone to great lengths to try to minimise the scale of what will be a large development. “The top of the building will be well below the level of the roofs of the houses in Riverdale, and due to the siting of the block, it will be screened for the most part from the Main Street. It will be built as a series of terraces stepped back into the slope, so although there will be 8 levels, it won’t look like a high rise block.”
The main benefit will be the provision of 270 public car parking spaces and Cllr Kelly says the town cannot afford to wait for years 'for something else to turn up' as by then the town centre will have been 'starved to death by the lack of parking'.
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