New parking powers could see on-the-spot fines at leisure centres in Newry. Mourne and Down

“Inconsiderate” motorists seen to abuse disabled and EV parking bays at the council’s leisure centres could soon be hit in the pocket as traffic enforcement comes into play.

The council consultation on the matter, which failed to spark the interest of motorists, was signed off by the environment committee last week with only six responses - four of those were against.

SDLP councillor Terry Andrews said: “It’s very disappointing that only six individuals have responded one way or another to us, but it is what it is.”

Alliance councillor Jill Truesdale added: “The Downpatrick, Kilkeel, Newry leisure centres fall into this now, so are the leisure centres’ parking spaces still free for patrons of the leisure centres?

“Are they just enforcing parking abuse within those leisure centre car parks?”

The change in legislation comes through a handover of off street parking functions from the Department of Infrastructure (DfI) to local authorities.

The council report shows, whilst the new policy will affect its 39 off street car parks, there are key proposals for its leisure centres, which currently have no legislative protection over parking abuse.

It states: “A high level of inconsiderate parking prevails around these facilities, with vehicles regularly parking in accessible parking bays without displaying blue badges, non-electric cars parking in EV bays, obstructive parking and parking in drop off lanes.”

The paper also outlines that the new powers would enable “traffic attendants to enforce on the spot” at the leisure centres.

A recent strategy, policy and resources committee paper has shown about 500k paid attendances in Newry Leisure Centre last year.

The collective figure across all council leisure centres shows over 930,000 paid attendances in the same period.

Council deputy chairperson Doire Finn (SDLP) said: “Obviously, the uptake, in terms of any kind of response to this, has been very low.

“I just wondered if, in particular, businesses that this might impact, is there any way that we can get in touch with businesses or residents just because six is quite a low number.

“So, I guess it’s just to get engagement and better communication with people.”

A council officer responded: “Just to be clear, we can’t make any of these changes until we actually enact this legislation.

“It will be just to enable enforcement of parking in these car parks in the leisure centres where we’re having challenges in terms of people parking in EV bays, parking in disabled spaces etc.

“So this legislation will give us powers to enforce that.”

The officer added: ”The council process was found in terms of the public consultation, and it was listed on the website, and communications were issued through social media, etc.

“I’m not sure if there’s anything further we could do at this stage, because we’ve really concluded the process, and we’d like to move forward with getting this agreed.

“Because that puts us in a strong position, whenever the DfI legislation is revoked fairly soon.”