Overflow parking area at Donard Park gets go-ahead

22 January 2020

A NEW permanent overflow parking area costing £250,000 is to be created to augment Donard car park in Newcastle.

It will be created on the land already used by Newry, Mourne and Down Council as an unofficial parking area at peak times over the summer months.

However, work is unlikely to start before November but it should be available for Easter next year.

The development proposal was passed at Monday’s meeting of Healthy and Active Communities committee in a bid to tackle the seaside town’s chronic parking problem.

It’s expected to be rubber-stamped at the next full council meeting early next month.

Mournes councillor Willie Clarke proposed the development which was seconded by his party colleague, Sean Doran.

The committee heard that the parking surface will be laid out as a grass screed with designated parking spaces along the same lines as Kilbroney Park in Rostrevor.

The cost would be allocated from the council’s capital programme and council officer Paul Tamati told councillors that the new car park would require planning approval and a tender exercise to appoint a contractor.

It was revealed that the unofficial adjacent car park — normally closed from November to Easter — was not an official designated parking area and subsequently not covered by the council’s public liability policy for this use.

While the council was able to pay for a parking steward to cover the park during peak times, this stopped when the parking area was closed over during winter and spring.

Cllr Clarke welcomed the development proposal and said that he and Cllr Laura Devlin had first brought it to the council for attention.

“This parking problem in Newcastle has been a major problem for years as Donard car park has been used as the access point for people using the Mournes,” he said.

“It’s essential that we get a new parking facility in the overflow as it can be like a ploughed field sometimes due to weather.

“What is proposed will be essentially a grass area and will be a good option to help with water displacement. The tourism season in Newcastle is now all-year long and we want to keep the car-park open.”

Cllr Devlin said that the council was “a victim of its own success” in being able to attract the numbers of visitors to the town.

She questioned the proposal’s contention that Newcastle’s parking demand “significantly decreases during the winter months”.

“It used to be that we would have parking problems during particular times such as the Festival of Flight and bank holidays. But now as long as its dry, Newcastle is busy and parking is a necessary part of the town centre,” she said.

“When the overflow car park is not being used, it’s complete chaos and parking can create issues for residents in nearby folds.”

She asked council officers when the new overflow car-park would be open for business and if the current overflow area could be kept open in the interim to help with parking demand.

Michael Lipsett, the council’s director of active and healthy communities, said he envisaged the work lasting three months and promised that once the necessary planning approval was gained, his department would be preparing to tender for a contractor as soon as possible.

Slieve Croob Cllr Andrew McMurray queried whether the car-park would be a “blanket tarmac” covering and if it would encroach on the green space.

He was told that the proposal was to use a synthetic grid which would allow grass to show through so it would look green but would also indicate the car spaces available and one-way traffic system planned.

Mournes Cllr Harold McKee welcomed the development as a “great idea” and said parking in Newcastle was “an absolute nightmare at any time of the year”.

Cllr Devlin suggested that the current overflow parking area should be in continuous use until the new facility is opened.

However, Mr Lipsett said he currently did not have the budget available to cover this but would investigate and report back.

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