10,000 signatures for anti-parking petition

Over 10,000 people have signed a petition calling on Blanchardstown Shopping Centre to reverse a planned implementation of parking charges.

Dublin 15 residents have criticised the shopping centre for attempting to bring in the charges, with local Labour representatives handing in a petition at the shopping centre last Saturday (March 21).

The five-point plan calls on the shopping centre to withdraw the current planning application in full, and to “sit down with this community to negotiate a fair alternative.”

The petition also called on the premises to “guarantee, in writing, that no worker will ever be charged just to go to work,” and to guarantee that “vulnerable users, charities, families and regular visitors will not be priced out of essential services and facilities.

The petition also called for the “protection” of surrounding communities, and not allowing them to become “overflow parks” for commercial reasons, as well as a commitment to protecting existing trees at the centre, along with “immediate” replanting of trees that have already been removed.

Local Labour councillors Mary McCamley and John Walsh were on hand to hand in the 10,000+ signature strong petition to the shopping centre, with the councillors calling the planned charges “unfair.”

McCamley, councillor for the Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart area, said “the environmental impact of this plan is too easily glossed over, but equally damaging – the plan involves the destruction of 347 trees to make way for the new barriers and paid parking installations.”

She said the plan is “fundamentally wrong and shows a shocking disregard for the benefits of trees in containing the climate crisis.”

Walsh said the planned introduction “beggars belief” and is a tax on both businesses and workers alike.

“It simply beggars belief that the new owners of the Centre are trying to impose parking charges in the midst of an affordability crisis in housing and the cost of living, when people can barely make ends meet as it is.”

The Castleknock councillor noted, “this plan is presented as a mobility enhancement scheme, but it is nothing of the sort and is all about making a quick buck at the expense of local communities, customers and workers at the Centre.”

“Even worse, the current plan will deny easy access for residents to vital public services such as HSE Breastcheck, Draiocht, the library and the civic offices,” he said.

Petition proposer Luke Daly, who serves as Labour’s secretary for the Dublin West area, said it was “unthinkable” to fundamentally change the layout, activities and the purpose of a central location for over 100,000 people and refuse to engage with them out of good faith when that same community has kept the shopping centre open for almost 30 years. 

“The people of Blanchardstown deserve to have their voices heard rather than being consistently left in the dark,” Daly said.

“Being sold a “Mobility Enhancement Plan” that benefits only the new owners is a slap into the face of the many communities that use the centre. Workers have the right to know, formally, how these changes will impact them, not through chain-messages and slips of papers left behind the tills informally.”

Daly said, “this petition shows the desire to be heard, and also respected as neighbours, workers and users of vital public services such as the Library, council medical facilities, legal facilities and more, and by design, additional usage of the shopping centre.”