DRIVERS need to take responsibility for where they park at beaches during the hot spells after cars blocked access for Kinsale Fire Brigade who were responding to an incident at Dock Beach in Kinsale.
The issue was raised at July’s meeting of Bandon Kinsale Municipal District by Cllr Ann Bambury (SD) who said she was contacted by Kinsale Fire Rescue about people parking and blocking access near Dock Beach.
She asked if the Council can improve signage at that area and said that in the event of an accident emergency services aren’t able to travel up and down.
‘Dock Beach was a real safety hazard on Saturday July 12th,’ said Cllr Bambury.
Cllr Marie O’Sullivan (FG) said this is soley down to members of the public parking badly and that one member of Kinsale Fire & Rescue had to get out of the truck to direct traffic while they were responding to an incident at the beach.
‘If you walk to the beach then it’s better to walk and this is really down to people’s behaviour,’ said Cllr O’Sullivan.
Senior executive engineer Richard Cahill said he was at the beach that day too and described it as ‘gridlock’ and said it was the same at Garrylucas Beach that day.
Kinsale Fire & Rescue resorted to posting a message online that day to ask that traffic stop coming to the Dock beach.
They said they had no other way out except to go back up the same road which is a one way system as the other road had too much traffic there.
They warned that if another incident is called in they need to be able to get out but said cars were parked from the Dock Beach all the way up to the bridge.
