Dumped vehicles are ‘getting beyond a joke’

BUSINESS owners say they are fed up with vehicles being dumped in the street near their premises with over 14 complaints to the Gold Coast City Council in the past year.

According to workers in the Southport industrial area cars are being parked on the roadside for weeks on end, only to be stripped by thieves.

A business owner on Frinton St, who did not want to be named, said he has been waiting for more than two weeks for council to remove a vehicle (pictured).

“It is a regular thing here, it is getting beyond a joke,” he said.

“Some have been here for weeks, then the number plates go and then the wheels go, and then you just have a car body left there, making the street look like the back blocks.”

The businessman has blamed a lack of lighting and council patrols.

“You look at all the beautiful marketing materials out there about the Gold Coast, yet there are stripped cars left sitting in our streets – it is ridiculous,” he said

The Bulletin understands most of the cars were from interstate or unregistered.

“The council investigates all reports of abandoned vehicles and also undertakes proactive patrols to identify vehicles that have been dumped in public space,” a Gold Coast City Council spokesperson said.