Letters to the editor - December 22

December 22 2017 - 4:00pm
Letters to the Editor – December 22
Letters to the Editor – December 22

Parking change call

Parking in Warrnambool’s CBD is in the process of seriously damaging the viability of commerce in the central area. We are all now aware of several businesses that couldn’t persist because of the Liebig Street refurbishment but I am forced to believe that the parking debacle will damage more of the businesses and drive ordinary people away into the satellite shopping areas. All the councillors promised to address the parking problems in their elections campaigns. It seems that they have agreed to introduce a scheme that many people cannot assimilate and which seems to be solely directed at gouging coins from the citizens. My conversations with many people in various settings around the town have revealed an abiding detestation of the machines which present several problems to the users: They require a steep learning curve especially for those many among us who are not tech savvy; The controls are very difficult for people with poor eye-hand coordination; The screens are very badly designed for reflections of glare which affect all users; The tickets that the machines spew out are made of non-biogradable plastic; The machines are placed in such a way that they are considerable distances from most of the parks that they control; The perception that the council is only out to grab dollars is not helped by the way that the fees have been extended to previously un-tariffed areas. The most vulnerable users are the most badly affected and the machines also have the very undesirable effect on the environment. There is only one advantage of the new system and that is that one fee can be used in any part of the CBD for the allotted time. That is an eminently sensible idea that I have espoused for many years. People are telling me that they actively avoid the CBD more than ever now and this is not a handful of people either. It seems that Warrnambool City Council is actually trying to set a new people - and trade-free - agenda for the CBD. Even if this isn’t the aim, I believe that the council is compounding a big mistake. If enough people respond to this letter I think that we could sway the direction back to sensibility through a huge public meeting to express our displeasure and make council retract the poor decisions. We need  people to say “stop this madness and set it right”.

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