A DAILY contest to find all-day parking in Morwell’s central business district has just become more competitive, with infrastructure upgrades removing 30 parking spaces from the equation.
Roadworks being undertaken at the bus exchange in Commercial Road, Morwell require the neighbouring carpark to act as a temporary bus zone.
“The pavement at the bus interchange is failing and needs repair to maintain safety for pedestrians and to prevent further deterioration and expense,” Latrobe City Council recreation and cultural liveability acting general manager Damian Blackford said.
“Latrobe City Council will also use this opportunity to repair a suspected broken pipe under the pavement during the works.”
About 30 all-day car spaces will be used while the works are being carried out.
As an attempt to mitigate the inconvenience to workers who rely on the all-day parking, the current two-hour parking on the other side of the carpark have been changed to all-day parking.
However, Commercial Road workers believe this will still cause great inconvenience for workers, shop owners and shoppers.
“We all struggle to get all day parking as it is even without those being taken away,” Stockdale and Leggo staff member Emma Munro said.
“If you’re not here by quarter to nine in the morning, all the all-day carparks are gone.
“So you have to park in Coles and nine times out of 10 get your car dented by trollies or you have to park in two-hour zones and leave work to move it.”
Ms Munro believed shop owners would soon become irritated by their staff needing to leave work to move their cars four times per day.
She also expected less car spaces for shoppers would deter patronage in the central business district.
“I think business owners would get mad because it’s just wasting time letting them go out to move their cars all day,” Ms Munro said.
“People who want to come down here to shop will probably just go to Mid Valley and take away more customers from the CBD.”
Ms Munro was concerned she would be fined in the two-hour zone, as quite often she was unable to leave work every two hours.
“If we’re on the phone we can’t exactly hang up and say, ‘sorry I’ve just got to move my car I’ll call you back in a minute’,” she said.
“I’ve got a fine for being five to 10 minutes late, if you’re moving your car you have to get out of your carpark, drive for 500 metres and park in a different carpark.”
Works are expected to end within three weeks.
