The Fermanagh & South Tyrone MLA however, questioned why it took until a week before Christmas before the announcement was made.
She said, “This announcement has been made in parallel with the pilot scheme announced by the Minister on 11th October. Last week I had questioned why there had been no progress on that since then.
Since it has been possible to introduce this interim measure without the consultation and legislative work related to the pilot scheme, it begs the question of why it has been left until one week before Christmas before its introduction.
It is a welcome step forward that hopefully can make some difference to traffic congestion and send out a positive message for our retailers. However, this would also have been helpful over the past few weeks since the problem was first highlighted.
We all want to see our town and city centres being successful, and particularly at this time of year. There must be lessons learned from this in the future about ensuring action is taken early and is taken in collaboration our retailers and business community.”