South and East Belfast Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Maskey describes meeting with Regional Development Minister as 'extremely productive'

Published: 30 January, 2009

South Belfast Sinn Féin MLA Alex Maskey has described Monday's meeting with Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy MP as extremely productive and has said that he looks forward to continuing to work with the Department for the betterment of the people of South Belfast.


Alex Maskey MLA said,

"Last year Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy and senior DRD officials visited the South Belfast constituency, at my request, to assess first-hand a number of issues that I had raised with him.


"Since the visit we saw the completion of traffic lights at Primrose Hill, the completion of the road safety work which was being carried out on Finaghy Road South and the completion of the work which was being carried out on the bridge at Finaghy Road North.


"Monday's meeting was about building upon this work and I was extremely pleased at the outcome of the meeting.


"On the issue of Residents-Only Parking schemes I was pleased to hear it reaffirmed by the Department of Regional Development that the issue of residents having to pay for such parking schemes has been resolved to the extent that those living in areas classed as Neighbourhood Renewal areas will not have to pay any fee. This is to be welcomed.


"In addition to this I pressed the Minister to go ahead and implement the Parking scheme in the Market area as a whole, in conjunction with local residents, instead of implementing it in two phases as the Department had proposed to do. I found the Ministers response to this to be open and the Department undertook to consider this, and to consult with the community on this matter.


"Again, on the issue of Parking, we discussed the issues which had been raised during the Minister's previous visit to the constituency by residents in the Adelaide Park/Cadogan Park area. Namely, problems associated with large numbers of University students parking in the area. I pressed home the fact that both the Department of Regional Development and Queens University must take responsibility for this issue. It was agreed that I would convene a meeting with both the DRD and Queens University on this issue and I will be insisting that they share some of the responsibility for this issue".

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