Also at the meeting were two PSNI officers, Audrey Byrne, Chairperson of the Newcastle Chamber of Commerce, three council officials, including the Council Chief Executive John Dumigan, SDLP Council Chairman Eamonn O’Neill, and UUP Councillor Desmond Patterson. The meeting was also addressed by two local businessmen who discussed their concerns with those present.
[caption id="attachment_23942" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Newcastle SDLP Councillor Carmel O'Boyle."]
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Speaking just after the meeting, Councillor Carmel O’Boyle said, “This was a very positive meeting and I believe we are all confident that together we have come up with workable solutions to some on-going public order issues that have been troubling business people and local residents for some time. I asked for this meeting to take place as soon as the elections were out of the way so that no time would be wasted in addressing the issues that are most important to the people of Newcastle who are trying to earn a living and to keep local people in employment. We agreed to introduce a number of measures at once that should go some way to tackle a number of thorny issues in Newcastle.
“It is also welcome news that the new Minister from Regional Development Danny Kennedy has already given an undertaking that it will be ‘a priority’ for him to undo proposals for on-street parking charges. This is in response to a letter written by the outgoing Sinn Fein DRD Minister Conor Murphy in which he stated categorically that ‘on-street car parking charges will be further extended to all major towns’ in Northern Ireland.
“In spite of repeated and vehement denials by local Sinn Fein candidates in the run-up to the elections that this was their Minister’s plans, Minister Kennedy said that it would be ‘entirely sensible’ to stop Sinn Fein’s plans from being introduced. So it looks as though the traders of Newcastle and those of twenty-nine other towns have been given a reprieve from on-street parking charges as a result of a welcome change of Minister and party in the Department of Regional Development.”
Bernagh Green in Newcastle
SDLP councillor Carmel O’Boyle has also welcomed the work recently undertaken at her request by the NIHE to clean up the streets and grassed areas in Bernagh Green.
She said, “Not alone has the NI Housing Executive agreed to include this area in its regular programme of work, but when weather conditions allow, they intend to reduce levels of topsoil and re-seed areas 4, 6 and 8 at the front of Bernagh Green after the DRD has re-surfaced the footpaths.
Bernagh Greeen has been neglected and this was only recently brought to my attention. I appreciate the fact that the NIHE has responded so promptly to my request for work to be undertaken in this area. It is important that local people bring issues like this to the attention of their public representatives so that we can lobby the appropriate statutory agencies on their behalf. This is the service they should expect from their councillors.”]]>
News In Brief
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