Council urged to take action on illegally parked caravans in Longford town centre

Longford County Council is being called on to explore all legal avenues to have caravans that are parked illegally in the Council controlled car park situated between Annaly Park and Main Street, Longford moved and to take the necessary actions to prevent this re-occurring.

Residents of nearby Annaly Park say one caravan has been parked there for more than a year. A second joined a number of weeks ago and a third arrived over the weekend.

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Cllr Joe Flaherty said, "We are facing into the busiest shopping week in Longford town and at a time when we are promoting free off street car parking, many shoppers will be dissuaded from using this car park and for those that use the facility, it creates a very unimpressive image of the town."

Bags of rubbish are starting to pile up alongside the bring bank facility but according to Cllr Flaherty: "I suspect that opportunistic dumpers are capitalising on the presence of the caravans to dump waste there."

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Cllr Flaherty said this has been an ongoing issue for residents of Annaly Park and nearby business owners. He said: "For the residents of Annaly Park and whose houses the caravans now back on, it is very frustrating. Generators are running through the night."

He called on the Council to liaise with the Gardai and explore all legal remedies at its disposal. "This is a publicly owned car park and given that this is the second instance of multiple caravans in the facility in the last six months, I do believe that we need to look to enforce the available legislation."

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Cllr Flaherty said he is sympathetic to the issue of Traveller accommodation and appreciate that these families are limited in where they can park.

However, he added, "Without sanitary facilities and given their close proximity to a housing estate and the retail centre of the town, this is probably the least suitable location for the unauthorised parking of caravans in town."

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