Parking spaces at church in Portlaoise may be removed

PARKING spaces on either side of the exit gates to the Church car park along the Stradbally Road in Portlaoise may be removed.

Cllr Catherine Fitzgerald, who proposed the motion to remove the spaces, at the November meeting of councillors from the Portlaoise Municipal District said: “I really don’t want to be asking for the spaces to be removed, but if your exiting the car park from the church it’s impossible because of the obstruction of the sight line to see out because cars are parked right beside the gates.” 

She said: “While it’s the last thing I want to do is to remove car parking spaces, this is from a safety point of view. What’s also happening at the top gate is that while traffic is trying to get in there, traffic is backing out at the same time.” 

Agreeing with the motion cllr Tommy Mulligan said that for the most part, many people who use the parking facilities around the church are elderly.

The council’s senior executive engineer Wes Wilkinson said that staff would examine the sight lines for drivers existing the church grounds and “will carry out road marking works to improve the location.”