Parking congestion is “chaos” near St Paul’s

A councillor has labelled parking congestion in narrow residential streets near a Warragul school as “absolute chaos.”

The comments followed a petition, signed by 20 residents of Maple Way, Cedar Pl and Willow Cres, being presented to a recent meeting of Baw Baw Shire Council.

“It is just a matter of time before there is an accident and a child is hurt, or worse,” the petition read.

It called for parking to be disallowed in three residential streets near St Paul’s Anglican Grammar, stating signatories would support parking restrictions during peak school times.

“We request that the shire contacts us to meet on site to manage the issue and see for themselves the congestion and issues and danger concerned,” the petition read.

The lead petitioner further stated they had approached several parents asking for them to be considerate and park further away. However, they claimed conversations had not been productive.

Councillors unanimously voted to receive the petition and directed council officers to prepare a report on the matter by May 1.

Cr Danny Goss described it as “a real bottleneck at the top end of Warragul.”

Cr Goss said parking was occurring in small streets with small bowls at the end, creating “absolute chaos” during school times.

“I don’t blame the residents one bit for coming forward and asking us to do something about it,” Cr Goss said.

He said St Paul’s had used school newsletters to ask parents not to stop in the streets but “that is being ignored”.

“Clearly council needs to take action here,” Cr Goss concluded.

Cr Darren Wallace was troubled that no standing signage would only shift traffic into other neighbouring streets.

“If we make a decision like that, do we then get bombarded by petitions from every school community wanting no parking zones in residential areas around schools?” Cr Wallace asked, noting recent issues at Warragul North, Darnum, Trafalgar and Drouin schools.

He said the onus should be on St Paul’s to look for a car drop-off fix.

“I think some deep thought does need to go into this on council’s behalf,” Cr Wallace said. “But I think there also needs to be some deep thought from St Paul’s themselves. This is a private school.”

“We’ve also got to be mindful that whatever we do here could have ramifications for every other school community in Baw Baw Shire,” he said.

Cr Keith Cook said St Paul’s already had two drop-off areas and extensive on-site parking, but the town and school had grown.