19th February 2024
Cllr Bob Quinn has called for a major reconfiguration of the arrangements for dropping pupils at St Corban’s National School.
In the first instance, he maintains that the four parking spaces adjacent to the school gates should be removed as cars moving in and out of them at drop-off and pick-up times is dangerous. Just across the road is O'Sullivan's car park, and next to that is the SuperValu overflow car park. Both car parks usually have lots of free spaces.
“It’s an accident waiting to happen,” he explained. “A car reversing out of one of those spaces narrowly missed a scooter passing on the road this morning, but it could just as easily have been a small child.”
“The fact is the site is a bottleneck and there needs to be some creative thinking about how to make getting to and from school safer for children.”
The councillor proposed the removal of the parking spaces at the Naas Municipal District meeting last week. He was disappointed that Cllrs Evie Sammon and Seamie Moore went against his proposal.
Cllr Quinn points out that there is a growing population housed to the south-east of Naas between the Ballycane Road, the Craddockstown Road and Ballymore Eustace Road, not to mention the older estates in the wedge between the Kilcullen Road and the Ballymore Road. For children living in this quadrant, it should be safe for them to get to school actively by walking or cycling (with an adult until they are independent enough to go it alone). This can be achieved, he suggests, through the opening up of permeability measures, or shortcuts, between housing developments and pockets of land, which would facilitate a more direct journey to school away from main roads and the hazards of heavy traffic, including poor air quality. Permeability measures and the lack of progress on them were the subject of another of Cllr Quinn’s motions.
“Imagine a safe entry point to St Corban's through Lakelands,” continued Cllr Quinn, “with a short walking route through the green area, reaching St Corban’s grounds at the playground and staff car park. This would remove a lot of congestion from the school entrance on that cramped bend on Corban’s Lane.”
He remains adamant that, in the short term, the parking spaces closest to the school gates should be removed for safety reasons. “In a town of several thousand parking spaces, in the face of risks to child safety and air pollution, it is hugely disappointing that some councillors went against the proposal.”
..... (with an adult until they are independent enough to go it alone).... Bob will prob give us all a "Teachers Note" to present to employers after we have walked kids to school in the lashing rain, then (presumably) walked back home, changed then got in our cars and driven to work.... Pushing thru rarely used cycle lanes has restricted options around parking throughout the town and nothing more now than ridiculous notions around now putting a plaster over thier mistakes...