Widespread free parking in Warrnambool's CBD will soon come to an end with councillors voting to replace it with limited free parking in some off-street car parks, but it too will not last forever.
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Parking will remain free across the entire CBD until July 18 when a newly adopted plan will come into effect which will make car parking free in three off-street car parks between 9am and 11am on weekdays.
The two hours of free parking will apply to Ozone, Crammond and Dickson, and Parkers car parks from July 18 until January 31 when the plan was to revert to "pre-COVID-19 parking conditions".
The council introduced free car parking in March.
While Warrnambool has been coronavirus-free for more than three months, with parts of Victoria experiencing what looks like a second wave it was made clear that the city could revert back to widespread free parking if it needed to.
Cr Robert Anderson said the council needed to promote the changes to let people know what the new parking arrangements would be.
"After 11am to 5.30pm you need to put money in the meter," Cr Anderson said.
Crs Kylie Gaston and Mike Neoh said the parking plan was a good compromise.
"Two hours is a reasonable amount of time to get many chores done and even have a cup of coffee," Cr Gaston said.
However, she said the business community had been very vocal about the need to increase the turnover of customers.
The council's infrastructure director Scott Cavanagh said the council was still seeing a lot of people overstaying the parking time limits.
Local laws officers had issued warnings to try to get motorists to adhere to the time limits but in recent weeks had started fining people, he said.
Cr David Owen said the new plan saved local laws officers having to chalking tyres and encouraged people to download the app which made it easier to manage parking.
Mayor Tony Herbert said that as the CBD had got busier there had been numerous calls and emails complaining about those staying in on-street car parks all day, day after day.
Cr Herbert said residents could use the 262 free car parks during the quieter time of the day to do shopping chores without having to use the meters.
Cr Peter Sycopoulis said he had been a supporter of free parking since the city's three main central car parks were constructed with the intention of them being free for all time, but with two and four hour parking limits.
He said while the free parking had been well received, there had been many calls about those who appeared to be deliberately overstaying their welcome in the timed free parking bays.
Cr Sycopoulis said that while he may have wished to continue with free parking measures in the format that had been in place for several months, after "a fair bit of discussion and compromise we felt that practicality became a bit of an overriding factor and that the two-hour free parking fits that bill for many reasons".
"I feel with the coronavirus still seriously impacting many businesses in our CBD area, it is incumbent upon council to take positive action to extend some form of free parking to assist traders, residents and motorists alike," he said.
In response to a question from Cr Herbert, Mr Cavanagh said the parking strategy was still progressing a draft was due to be presented to the council in the next four to six weeks.
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