The other day, I went to the Homemate stores and found the usual disruption of traffic in the area due to cars being parked on both sides of all the roads. Even Homemate’s own parking was completely full and I wondered whether the government implemented its parking solution yet, opening up a large piece of land nearby, as it had been advertised.

Having found no space at the Homemate parking lot I left the place and there, before me, just five metres down the road, was the entrance to the new parking area, supposedly set up to discourage parking on roads.

A sign at the entrance informed motorists a €2.50 parking fee was charged. There were only about six cars parked there and, yet, the area is so large it could have possibly accommodated three quarters of all the cars parked in surrounding roads.

I asked the attendant why the fee was so high, adding that a more decent one would probably result in more cars being parked there and a bigger income. I got the usual shrug and he walked off.

For the fee being charged, one is expected to park on rough gravel, that is not even flattened properly, with not a speck of tarmac anywhere. I can only imagine that when it rains one must walk through mud.

Who is pocketing this parking fee and for what?

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.