Athlone 'may be losing trade' over tourist bus parking

Athlone's growth as a tourism destination is being hampered by the lack of available bus parking in the town, according to some local councillors.

"For a tourist town like Athlone we really need to facilitate (bus parking), because at the moment we're probably losing trade over it," said Cllr John Dolan.

"I don't have figures for that, so I can't prove it, but it's the lad driving the bus who decides whether or not to come into town, and if he feels it's easy to negotiate, and easy to park, he'll come in."

Cllr Dolan was speaking at the January monthly meeting of the Athlone Moate Municipal District, where he had a motion asking the local authority to examine "potential sites for a bus park in Athlone to facilitate bus parking for the tourist season and other times".

A written response from the council stated that bus parking was currently in place "at a number of locations in Athlone" including Elliott Road (formerly Grace Road or Accommodation Road) and Golden Island.

The council said suitable land was "not readily available" for a bus park in the centre of town.

However, it said there was scope to provide parking "on the approach roads to Athlone, away from the town centre," where buses could wait after dropping off passengers at more central sites.

The local authority said it would consult with "Destination Athlone, tour operators and tourism interests," to discuss the edge of town bus parking proposal.

Cllr Dolan said the current bus parking on Elliott Road was "not ideal" as it was delaying other traffic on the road.

"There has to be a better way, and we have to think outside the box," he said, mentioning that further development of bus parking at Burgess Park, on the east side of the town, could be an option.

Bus parking was "one of the old chestnuts that crops up regularly, because there's no easy solution to it," said Cllr Aengus O'Rourke.

"Elliott Road can be a disaster at times when there's a row of buses parked there and only one lane of traffic can pass."

He said he would favour a system where buses dropped off passengers at their required location and then went elsewhere to park.

"Discussions should be had about that with tour operators, tourism interests, and businesses like Sean's Bar who have busloads coming every day," he said.

Cllr Frankie Keena said it was "great to see Athlone thriving as a tourism destination" but he also felt Elliott Road was "not really suitable" for bus parking.

"This is a good problem to have, but we have to try and solve it," he said.

Cllr Tom Farrell said it was important to facilitate buses coming into Athlone on a regular basis, and that the town was sometimes being bypassed because of the lack of suitable parking spaces.

He pointed out that places like Kilkenny had "very good bus parking" which added to their popularity with tourists.

Buses were already parking in the Burgess Park area, Cllr Paul Hogan said.

"If you go down there any other day you see buses parked at the top of Golden Island, which is indicative of bus drivers themselves identifying that there's an issue with the current arrangement.

"I think we should look at a 'town base' where buses could go after they've dropped off passengers, so as not to congest the town centre," Cllr Hogan commented.

Athlone's Mayor, Cllr Louise Heavin, said she supported Cllr Dolan's motion but would be "loathe to lose any green space" for coach parking.

She said there were plenty of State-owned car parks that were "under-used" at present and could be potential options.

"We should be trying to avoid congestion, but we don't want people to be dropped on the edge of town either," she said.

"With the way Citylink and Aircoach operate, tourists are actually being dropped on the outskirts of town and they don't know their way into town because we have terrible signage."

Council director of services Barry Kehoe said a number of "very valid points" had been made during the discussion, and that the council was in favour of buses dropping people to tourism sites and accommodation before then moving out of the town centre to park.

"There is ample space around that could be used, and that wouldn't interfere with anybody, particularly during the middle of the day when most of these buses are parked up," he said.

Mr Kehoe noted that bus parking was "demarcated already" in Golden Island, "on the car park side of the main road to the civic amenity site".

He added: "What we may look at this year is the density of parking on Elliott Road, and maybe try and remove some of that, because really there's no reason why people should be parking up on Elliott Road for long periods.

"They should be dropping their passengers there and moving on. I think that might be the first thing to tackle, and to advise those drivers that there is parking available at a number of sites, east and west, where they could park, to try and get them away from Elliott Road."