“It is a very serious health and safety issue, there has already been several accidents at this location, with one of them being a very young child who had to be hospitalised.”
A Lisburn councillor has highlighted “alarming” traffic evidence giving way to “serious concerns” over Lambeg car accidents close to a children’s play park.
The council is now seeking to grill the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) with the chamber hearing a potential blind eye being turned to parking breaches.
A Freedom of Information (FoI) request has shown that despite visits by Traffic Attendants now surging in the last month (July), no parking tickets have been handed out in seven months..
In chambers, Lisburn North DUP councillor Jonathan Craig said: ”A very controversial parking issue has raised its head again in Lambeg.
“It is a very serious health and safety issue, there has already been several accidents at this location, with one of them being a very young child who had to be hospitalised.”
“The thing that has really brought this to a head is that a resident has put in a Freedom of Information (FoI) request and has emailed it to all of the councillors.”
The Local Democracy Reporting Service has viewed the FoI, which shows DfI enforcement officers visited the Lambeg area only once in January and then not again until April.
The Traffic Attendants then made regular visits at about four times a month and then jumped to seven times in July.
The FoI requested a list of visits from January to July on the Lambeg Road, Lambeg.
Councillor Craig added:“What this FoI highlights is that on 19 separate occasions enforcement officers visited Lambeg.
“The alarming thing was that the same individual showed me evidence of an enforcement officer standing beside vehicles that were clearly parked on double yellow lines.
“But as this FoI shows that on all 19 occasions, absolutely no enforcement tickets were handed out and there is evidence showing us that should not be the case.
“I would request a meeting of all Lisburn North councillors with Roads Service to try and get a resolution to this situation. We do need to get this addressed.”
The proposal to write to DfI was approved this week by the council.
However, in the FoI response, DfI added:”Patrols have been programmed over the coming weeks.
“However, due to the high level of compliance with the restrictions recorded by the Traffic Attendants, the frequency of patrols may be reduced thereafter.”
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