MLA hosts meeting with Translink to discuss ‘much needed’ park and ride facility for Moira

The meeting comes after Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council deferred a decision on Translink’s planning application for the park and ride facility.

The council also rejected proposals from a private developer seeking to establish a park and ride facility in the Moira area.

"For many years I have been inundated with concerns in regard to the impact of a lack of parking for the hundreds of daily train users who make their journeys from Moira station,” said Mr Butler.

"I have listened to these concerns and visited the site many times and have witnessed the huge safety concerns created by the parking of vehicles by drivers who cannot find a space in the inadequate and ancient station parking facility as it exists.

“The risk that has been assessed to pedestrian, and particularly wheelchair users and parents with prams, who have to navigate the parked traffic around that location is one that planners cannot ignore any further.

"The delivery of the park and ride facility cannot be delayed anymore and I call on Lisburn Planning Committee to work diligently and with haste to agree a solution on the matters that have been raised at the latest planning meeting and ensure that this project and opportunity is not lost to other competing Translink projects.”

At a recent meeting of the Council’s Planning Committee, the members decided, on a vote of six to four, to defer the application for further information and negotiations to be entered into.

The committee had heard from Translink that cars parking on nearby streets would be adsorbed into a the new park and ride facility.

It then expected journeys on the Station Road to increase by 5%, which was below the DfI threshold to enforce major changes to road designs.

Speaking at the meeting committee chairperson Alderman Martin Gregg (Alliance) said: “This facility is much needed for the area. Though, I do have a tremendous conflict over no plans to change the turn at the A26 junction.”