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By Sean Moriarty

A proposal to pedestrianise Main St on Saturdays and Sundays during the months of July and August has been put forward by the executive of Killarney Municipal District.

Subject to a public consultation process, it is proposed to close the street from 11am on Saturday until 8am on Monday for the nine weekends during July and August.
Council management said that on foot of research that the footfall on Main St during these times last summer was too high to accommodate social distancing measures in the area. The Council also said that this proposal is only for times and dates specified and that there is no intention to extend this proposal further.
“We observed footfall during 2020 and it was in excess of that expected, particularly during weekends in July and August,” District Manager Angela McAllen told a Killarney Municipal District meeting on Wednesday.
The proposal received a mixed reaction from elected councillors with some saying that this is another attempt to fully pedestrianise the town centre while others supported the move.
The current ‘Safe Streets’ plan introduced last July, had previously been extended to at least October of this year. The Main St plan is an extension of this scheme.
The next step for the Council is to advertise the proposal in local media and engage with residents and business owners before the plan can be advanced or not.