THE STATE is making a fresh attempt to put in place enhanced car parking facilities for visitors near Mullaghmore in the Burren National Park.
The planning application by the National Parks and Wildlife Service comes more than a decade after the State was forced to demolish its ill-fated Mullaghmore interpretive centre.
The controversy over the original visitor centre and a scaled down proposal – that spanned the 1990s – caused major divisions in the local community. It also resulted in fundamental changes to Irish planning laws following a Supreme Court ruling that Government agencies could not be exempt from planning laws.
The demolition of the original centre in 2001 followed a successful battle by the Burren Action Group in opposing the €5.1 million Government plan.
Now, the wildlife service has lodged plans with Clare County Council for a car park on the site of the overflow car park of the original centre to facilitate improved visitor access to the national park. According to planning documents lodged by the wildlife service: “The intention is to encourage low-impact, dispersed access to the national park.”
The planned car park would be within the East Burren Complex Special Area of Conservation and follows incremental improvements to visitor access to the Burren National Park in the recent past.
Five walking trails have been developed near the car park, while a visitor information point opened in Corofin this year. A bus service from Corofin is provided to the park and there are plans to expand the service in 2013. According to the wildlife service, the car park “is required to provide parking for visitor access to the park, mainly for inspirational, recreational, educational and research purposes and to reduce the frequency of parking along the road verges that occurs at present”.
“The intention is to cater for existing visitor usage . . . to improve visitor safety, traffic congestion and access problems, particularly for local communities.
“If developed, this will be the only formal car park within the national park and is limited in size.” The wildlife service claims the car-park will cater for 27 spaces and that “no other service will be provided. There will be no bins, picnic or toilet facilities, no water supply and no lighting”.
The application goes on to state: “Although it is envisaged that information panels and pedestrian signage may be erected inside the site at some stage in the future, they do not form part of the present proposal.”
The wildlife service says there will be no loss of EU-designated habitats “and no significant impact on the structure and functioning of these habitats”.
A decision is due in December.
