Parking crackdown

Overstaying car parking time limits across Baw Baw Shire will not be tolerated.

Council has decided to crackdown on parking restrictions and with the introduction of increased patrols this week, offending drivers are being warned they have two weeks to change their habits.

Calls from community members and retailers for council to take a tougher approach on parking have been on the table for more than 12 months.

In July, Cr Danny Goss called for officers to prepare a detailed report on car parking in the Warragul central business district.

As a result, council last week agreed to provide a two week warning period, beginning yesterday, for drivers overstaying in timed parking zones for their first offence.

Cr Goss said people had two weeks “to get their act together” and move their cars out of those timed areas.

Mayor Joe Gauci said there had been strong community support for increased car parking patrols to ensure people were not parking all day where they shouldn’t be.

“Our shire, especially around Warragul and Drouin, is growing at a rapid rate which is putting a lot of pressure on our limited car parking spaces.

“We are continuing to consider viable options for increasing parking spaces in these towns but want to offer fairer use of the available spaces in the meantime.

“Council acknowledges that many community members obey the parking rules in time bays and in restricted parking areas such as disabled spaces and loading zones.

“We hope that by increasing our active patrols, we will be able to better ensure safe and proper use of parking spaces,” Cr Gauci said.

The report specifically asked officers to detail the number of car parks in Warragul and the status of car parks located within the Woolworths precinct.

Parking patrols are undertaken by council’s community compliance team. The report said patrols were random for location and time to remove predictability.

Officers issued 577 parking infringements across the shire between January 1 and October 30. Almost all infringements were issued in Warragul and Drouin.

The report said a recent review of the compliance team identified opportunities to increase car parking patrols across the shire.

The report said the compliance team did not patrol private car parking spaces. Council previously had agreements in place to provide the service to owners of the larger private car parking areas, but these agreements had lapsed.

The report said officers were engaging with owners to ascertain if there was interest in a similar agreement.

Cr Goss said the report answered all his questions and he was particularly interested in the information relating to the area known as the Woolworths car park.

“There are basically eight titles there and only 25 out of the 232 car parks belong to council.

“Vehicles in the Woolworths car park are not policed and people can overstay as long as they want. I know council officers are talking to the owners but it won’t be simple with eight titles,” he said.

Cr Mikaela Power said she looked forward to some action on car parking.

She said she recently visited the town area several times in one day and noticed a vehicle, prominently logoed with a local real estate agent business, parked outside their premises all day.

“That shows us there are people that expect to park all day and not be fined,” she said.

Cr Power said Baw Baw did not want to be like other councils and increase patrols during Christmas shopping periods so council was giving drivers a two week warning period that patrols are being increased.

Cr Peter Kostos said parking had always been a sensitive area.

“We are not going to please everyone but hopefully if people get a ticket they will know why it happened,” he said.