Illegal parking is preventing emergency services from accessing Inishowen beach

Emergency services will be unable to access an Inishowen beach in the event of an emergency due to traffic blocking the entrance, according to Councillor Martin Farren. 

The Inishowen councillor said a major concern of his is that if someone were drowning or took ill on Shroove beach, the response time of the emergency services would be significantly delayed due to cars illegally parking on the road leading to the beach. “If something were to happen on the beach. They just couldn't possibly get to the beach.”

Councilor Farren is calling on anyone who is parking on the road to look at the bigger picture. “Those people who are doing this know what they're doing. It could be themselves or one of their families who could be in difficulty on that beach and  would need the emergency services to get to them.”

“They've got to think outside the box here because this is a very serious situation. Thankfully, there have been no major incidents, and I hope that it stays that way.”

It’s not just emergency services who have been affected by the narrow road being blocked, but Foyle Coaches suspended the Local Link bus servicing Shroove three days last week due to the bus being unable to complete its journey after beachgoers abandoned their vehicles blocking both sides of the road. 

While some residents have been trapped in their homes by car owners parking in their driveway, and as a deterrent to illegal parkers, homeowners during the weekend “placed traffic cones out on their driveways to leave the entrance clear, but people just came and parked there anyway. To me, that's quite ignorant,” added Councillor Farren. 

The Moville councillor has been working with the road section of Donegal County Council and liaising with the Gardai to try to find a solution for the ongoing gridlock at Shroove. “The beach car park is the size that it is, and there's no way to sort of possibly extend it, that I can see at the moment.”

“While Donegal County Council road sections have tried to keep the hedges trimmed as far as they possibly can to make it more accessible for vehicles, as you know, what's happening here at the moment, people are just parking at both sides of the road  and making it impossible really for buses to go through.”

Councillor Farren said one solution could be if double yellow lines were put down to deter people from illegally parking on the road to the beach, known locally as the Middle Road.  He added that the yellow lines would only work as a deterrent if Gardai enforced punishments for traffic violations on motorists. 

“The Gardai need to be there and take number plates or do whatever they have to do about this matter because it can't carry on the way that it's going at the moment. It's just not acceptable.”

Last Sunday morning, after Foyle Coaches cancelled services once again operating in Shroove for the day, several people contacted Councillor Farren, concerned over the situation.

Mr Farren said that he rang the Gardai and “I asked them if they could patrol that stretch of road. They said that they would see what they could do for me, but that didn't work because the beach was chock-a-block again. Both sides of the road were completely blocked up.”

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The Labour Councillor said motorists have to take a lot of responsibility as well. “They know that when they're getting out of a vehicle and they see one parked across the road from their own and they get out of their vehicle, they can see that the road is very narrow and that traffic just isn't going to get through.”