A chara, – "Dún Laoghaire is set to reclaim its main street, closing to traffic from July 5th, not just for dining but for cultural events", concludes your report (News, May 25th).
This proposal by the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council officials is subject to a three-week public consultation.
With the history of such “public consultations”, your report is probably quite correct in assuming that this will proceed anyway, once the council officials have ticked all the necessary boxes. In any case, that is the sad history of “public consultations” in this region.
In their favour, the council officials have this time decided to hold their public consultation. This is in sharp contrast with their banning of cars from part of the seafront on a “trial period” during the first Covid lockdown, without any public consultation whatsoever. That “trial period” is now passed but the ban remains in place. This has caused major consequences in the small residential streets around our town. There could well be a valuable place for experiments in traffic management provided our county council could be relied on to honour their time scales for such activity. On the other hand, introducing any changes in traffic flow now is crazy at a time when local business is being reclaimed as people are now more inclined to shop local, arising from the Covid crisis.
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Many local businesses are now experiencing a major improvement in trade following some very difficult years. What is being proposed – the banning of buses and cars from part of our main street – was tried about 10 years ago but failed following a revolt by local business people and residents. Shoppers found that they had to walk long distances to get buses home – carrying their purchases – while motorists simply “voted with their wheels” by driving to shopping complexes along the M50 where they were welcomed, sometimes with free parking. This directly resulted in closed shops and job losses in all parts of our town.
The banning of public service buses and cars from part of our main street is yet another attempt to enforce the county council’s (and the Government’s) traffic ideology. Meanwhile we can assume that the “public consultation” now under way will unfortunately have no bearing on their decision, which was made without any apparent consultation with our elected public representatives. – Is mise,
BREASAL Ó CAOLLAÍ,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.