Say NO To Any Plan To Extend Parking In To Thorold’s Historic Memorial Park
A Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper
Posted November 25th, 2025 on Niagara At Large
Thorold Mayor Terry Ugulini, at the podium, saying a few words before laying a wreath at the cenotaph in Memorial Park on Remembrance Day this past November 11th, shortly before residents in the area learned that the city is planning on extending a parking lot into the park
This past Remembrance Day, my wife and I joined a large gathering of people at Memorial Park in Thorold for a ceremony held there every November 11th to honour those who fought and died in past wars.
The 106-year-old park, located in a neighbourhood of grand old homes located near the west banks of the Welland Canal, features equally grand old trees and a cenotaph carved with the names of young people from the Thorold area who sacrificed their lives in The First and Second World Wars and the Korean War that followed.
It was a beautiful ceremony with a number of the area’s elected representatives, including the city’s mayor, Terry Ugulini, there to say a few words and lay a wreath, and was all still fresh in my mind a few days later when I received an email from a resident living in the neighbourhood that the city was barnstorming ahead with plans to expand a parking lot from an adjacent seniors’ centre right in to the park grounds.
They were planning to start digging up turn and sawing down some of the trees in the park, I was told, without so much as consulting with residents in the neighbourhood or anyone else across the municipality or beyond who might cherish this park.
A parking lot in Memorial Park?!! The mayor was just there at the Remembrance Day ceremony, poppy in his lapel and sharing words about this place as a memorial for the war dead.
One of the first words that came to mind for me as I was wrestling with the shock of hearing this news was ‘vandalism’,
It was a word that the late Jane Jacobs, a Canadian author and a powerful voice for protecting and preserving treasured places in our cities and towns, often used when some party moved to damage or destroy those places.
In the view of this Niagara resident and I would suspect many others, vandalism is at least one fitting word to use for any plan to pave over even a few square metres of a scenic old park for parking cars, let alone pave over enough of it as was the city;s plan up to even a week or so ago to park 40 cars or more.
Gloria Leahey (centre and behind podium), a Thorold resident and represetative of Friends of Memorial Park, addresses Thorold’s city council earlier this November about concerns over plans to extend a parking lot into the park.
At a recent Thorold city council meeting, where residents from the neighbourhood around the park packed the council chambers and were at least able to persuade the council to hold a public meeting so they could have some say in this issue, Gloria Leahay, one of the residents and members of a recently formed group called Friends of Memorial Park, described the park as “a beautiful, peaceful (place) in downtown Thorold that serves the entire community. It’s a place where people, young and old, go to read and relax, where kids play, where trees provide respite and calm, where the nearby war memorial offers a site for quiet contemplation,” she said as she stood before the city council. “It is a public space for all of us to use and enjoy. It is a quintessential ‘public good’.”
In other words, it is the kind of place that Jane Jacobs would fight like hell to protect from the vandals.
At a public information session on the parking issue, that took place at the seniors’ centre this November 24th, virtually everyone I talked to, including former Thorold city councillor and retired Thorold High School principal Mike Charron and former Thorold mayor Robin Brock, shared similar feelings about the value of the park to the community and about who tragic it would be to extend parking lots in to there.
Residents looking over maps of Memorial Park and possible plans for parking lots at a public information session held by the City of Thorold this November 24th.
Those operating the seniors centre express love for the park too but they also say they desperately need more parking for a growing population of aging people in the community who want to participate in activities the centre has to offer.
To all of this and to everyone, regardless of what grup they belong to, there must be other ways to address the parking issue that works for the seniors’ centre and for the protection and preservation of green space in a much-beloved park that has an Ontario heritage designation.
Robin Brock said one of the things the city might do is move city planning staff that is taking up room on the seniors’ centre’s second floor, and using some of the centre’s existing parking space while they are at at, to the old Maplehurst Mansion, which the city owns and which has been closed now for a number of years.
The city might also consider exploring what can be done to work with Niagara’s regional transit service to bring people to the centre by means other than the car – a means of transportation that surely won’t go on dominating our lives forever.
Come on members of council. There have got to be ways of addressing the seniors’ centre’s parking problem other than expanding parking in to this cherished park.
If they need a bit of a motivator, members of Thorold’s council should remember that there is a municipal election next year and I have every reason to believe, from my conversations with residents in the community, that they won’t forget any one on the council who votes in favour of putting even a few lots in what some of them have referred to as this green “paradise” to park cars.
But why make the fear of being run out of office your reason for doing the right thing.
How much better it would be to make it a proud part of your legacy to protect and preserve the green space in this historic park for present and future generations.
Various options for more or less parking lots in the park were put on display at the public information session that the city held at the seniors centre this November 24th.
But the bottomline is this. There is no acceptable parking lot option for Memorial Park.
Any paving over of green space in that beloved public place would be an act of vandalism.
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
Stay tuned to Niagara At Large for future developments on this issue, including dates for future city council meetings on it.
In the meantime, if you want to support the residents’ efforts to protect Memorial Park, you can contact – WeLoveMemorialPark@gmail.com
For other recent news and commentary Niagara At Large has posted on this issue, click on the following link – Thorold Council Agrees To Public Meeting On Plan To Extend Parking Lot Into City’s Historic Memorial Park | Niagara At Large
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