Parking fee hike hits city

Lobby groups lash out

RATEPAYER lobby groups have slammed needless markups at council parking meters and the sneaky addition of credit card fees with no apparent plan for improving infrastructure.

The City of Greater Geelong yesterday added a 0.57 per cent surcharge for credit card payments, while also ushering in price hikes up to 3.9 per cent from July 1.

Ratepayers Geelong Inc president Andrew Senia said there appeared “no reason” for the additional charges and called for more accountability and transparency.

“We want to keep rates down as much as we can including parking fees. We don’t see it justified, the increase,” he said.

“It’s another revenueraising attempt from our local council. We always go back to proper financial management and resource management from council. They could actually reduce rates and carparking by proper and efficient management.”

Mr Senia said the expectation was for all fees to be directed back to investment in parking infrastructure, particularly as demand increased.

WorkSafe will officially open its new headquarters on Malop St this week, bringing more than 500 extra commuters into the CBD potentially battling for ever-diminishing carparking spaces.

It will get even tougher in early 2019 when a new building opens on Malop St for National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) and Department of Human Services (DHS) employees.

The NDIA and DHS told the Geelong Advertiser the ma- jority of their combined 945 staff who will work from the new site were already spread across their CBD offices.

Together they will share 102 carparks.

Georgia Markham, from Clifton Springs, said there were limited all-day parking options in Geelong CBD for a reasonable price and called for more accessible free parking options for casual users.

“I would make more free parking. I don’t like paying for parking. If I need to go shopping, I normally go up to Werribee Plaza, because it’s free,” she said.

Mr Senia said Brougham St was particularly dangerous at peak time as distracted commuters clamoured for spaces.

“Every morning there’s chock-a-block traffic out here of people looking for parks. There’s not one spare park,” he said.

“You also see trees planted in the middle of the road on Brougham St. Now each one of those could be a car space.”

CoGG did not provide a response to questions from the Geelong Advertiser prior to deadline.