One of the City of Bunbury’s councillors has suggested a new idea for parking in the central business district.
At the council meeting on August 7, councillor Brendan Kelly put forward a motion asking for chief executive officer Mal Osborne to change the Central Business District Parking Strategy to include non-ticketed, time restricted, on-street parking.
The motion also called for the city to remove all CBD on-street parking ticket machines.
In his submission, councillor Kelly said the decision to introduce free ticketed, on-street parking had made the machines a “liability”.
He added many CBD shop owners and retailers have called for the machines to be removed.
Council voted 8/3 in favour of deferring the motion.
Councillors Kelly, Karen Steele, and Betty McCleary voted against the deferral.
The motion will return once city officers have completed the public consultation process and have prepared their report for council.
A large crowd had gathered at the council chambers on August 7, intent on hearing the discussion.
City of Bunbury Mayor Gary Brennan said parking was a delicate issue.
“What we’ll need to be careful of when we make a decision – once the report comes back in September/October – is that we don’t stifle the CBD by not having cars moving,” he said.
Mr Brennan said, since last month’s CBD planning forum, over 800 people have used the Social Pinpoint system.
“We have had about 300 suggestions/comments and a lot of those are from unique users getting on there,” he said.
Mr Brennan said the city held feedback sessions on August 3 and August 11.
He said the city was looking forward to continuing its discussions with CBD shop owners and retailers.
“I caught up with a few retailers in the CBD recently and it was really refreshing to hear them talk positively about what the city, retailers and landowners can do, each of those have a role,” he said.
“They expressed that we should be working more collaboratively, so we should all be on the same page in regards to talking positively about our city and CBD.
“We can get too focused on one issue – parking. However, that is one of a whole raft of elements which impact our CBD and retailers across Australia.”
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