Parking officers have fined hundreds of people this year for flouting parking restrictions in Werribee CBD – and it’s driving shoppers and traders mad.
A petition calling for a multi-storey carpark was lodged with Wyndham council on Monday and will be considered as part of a council-commissioned parking strategy to alleviate parking problems in the area.
From January to March this year, the council issued 2482 parking fines totalling $237,935.
Werribee CBD was one of the worst hotspots for illegal parking, with 750 fines in the same period.
A dedicated officer has since been allocated to the area to ensure parking turnover.
Williams Landing train station and Leakes Road, particularly around Laverton Market, are other illegal parking hotspots.
The 28-signature petition, tabled at Monday’s council meeting, called for a multi-storey carpark to be built in the Werribee CBD immediately. The petition said it should be open to all businesses, visitors and Wyndham residents. But it did not state where it believed the carpark should be or how many cars it should accommodate.
The petition also calls for a Werribee CBD carparking committee to solve parking problems, which have been exacerbated by the rapid growth of the city’s population.
Lindsay Ingram, of the Werribee CBD landowners group, said traders had been consulting with the council over parking for two years but with no luck.
“More carparking is needed desperately and we support what these petitioners are trying to do,” Mr Ingram said. “Something needs to be done.”
Councillor and transport portfolio holder Glenn Goodfellow said he supported extra carparking measures in the area.
“We need carparking in [Werribee CBD] – multi-storey, single-storey, whatever,” he said.
The proposed multi-storey carpark will be considered as part of the council’s Werribee City Centre Parking Strategy, which is under development.
It is scheduled to be completed by August.
