The latest installment in this sorry saga unfolded this week when the rate of car parking in Sallins new undergound car park effectively doubled to €2 a day rather than €5 a week as before. After many jigs and reels and many phone conversations I have extracted some information (I won’t say logic) as to what’s happened.
Basically CIE own the above ground car park and the Waterways developer (G&K Developments) own the new underground facility. G&K built the underground as a condition of planning and were required to do so in order to secure permission for the rest of the development. They kept their side of the bargain and spent a couple of million building the thing.
Four weeks ago the new facility opened its gates whilst Irish Rail begin charging for station parking at the same time. Fair enough. However what is not fair enough is that the new facility is double the cost of the rest of the car park. In a nutshell it’s because the developer is still maintaining the underground and it costs more to run, whilst the above ground has minimal costs and is still owned by CIE. G&K say they have been left holding the baby to some extent and insist they must cover their costs at least if they are to end up running the facility and hence they cannot afford to offer the weekly ticket. I’ve seen their figures and they’re not lying.
But the overall feeling remains frustration as in all previous discussions on the car park we were quoted a parking fee of E5 a week. The first anyone heard about the underground being dearer was when the machines stopped taking the coins. The nightmare situation now is that people begin to boycott the new carpark and once again spill over into the surrounding areas. It goes from the ridiculous to the sublime.
CIE have gone to ground the last few days although I will get a chance to hear their side of the story when NASRUG formally meet with them next week. The whole thing is becoming a never ending story..
I made a few of those phone calls this week too as one machine in the underground would only give me 2 hours parking for 2 euro and then the other over in the corner was still accepting 5 euro but not printing tickets…
I spoke to Dolores in Europarks who said it was G&K’s call, spoke to Brendan in G&K who said it was Europarks who’d made the mistake by putting up the wrong signs and they weren’t offering a weekly ticket because they had to leave the lights on (!) and Deirdre & Gary in Irish Rail said they couldn’t get any information from either company (to be fair, they did both ring me back) but that they were renegotiating the deal… so I parked all week with a note on my car basically saying stuff the lot of ye!
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So what exactly is the situation now with the car park. I am not a very frequent user of Sallins station but why would people use the underground car park when they can park above ground? I.E in the Supervalue car park. Do they charge the same rate example 5 Euro a week?. Any time I shop in Supervalue the attendant is there checking both the rail station car park and Supervalue area. The whole place is confusing. The charges are reasonable. Anybody who objects to 2Euro a day needs to find out how much per hour they charge in Dublin! 2.60 an hour.
The SuperValu carpark is not for use by rail users. It is priced and geared specifically towards shoppers and is payable on an hourly top-up basis (which is refundable at the till). However the undergound car park is built specifically for rail users and marked as such at the entrance.
Apart from the underground the only alternative parking for rail users is in the old CIE car park or to park around the neighbouring estates and streets which causes other issues. The CIE car park is fine but has limited capacity which is why the new car park was built at a cost of 3 Million.
I agree at face value 2 euro a day is not a huge charge, however in discussions going back over three years it was consistently stated that a 5 euro weekly option would be availlable. Having operated at the same price for the first month, last week it changed that the CIE car park continues to offer 5 weekly, but below ground only 2 daily is available.
I consider it poor management and illogical to have different fare structures in place in what is effectively the same facility. It is indeed very confusing. There are lots of scenarios where the whole thing falls down. Say for example someone parks above ground Monday morning and purchases a weekly ticket but returning Tuesday morning finds the CIE car park full – as their weekly pass has no currency below do they then pay another 2 euro to park underground? And potentially face the same dilemma every other morning? The idea behind extending the carpark and offering weekly tickets should be that a standard applies across the whole complex.
The issue is still in dispute and contact is ongoing between all parties including Irish Rail, Kildare County Council, G&K Development, Naas and Sallins Rail Users and Euro Car Parks. I also spoke to Deputy Aine Brady about this on Thursday night who has lodged a question with the Transport Minister on the issue.
Will keep all briefed of developments.
Hi
just a quick point re parking, GK own the underground and its a very valuable tax break scheme for them, you were right that they had to put it in for planning but very cleverly it comes with full tax breaks, if it didn’t they would have very quickly sold it off like rest of the site. On a separate note, the car park has been ready a long time certainly not much has happened to it since Aug 2007, if it was me and it was costing a fortune i would have opened it and collected some revenue. Great work on the site