Most parking spaces on Banna Avenue have a two-hour limit. Photo: Oliver Jacques.
A motion to abolish parking time limits on Saturday mornings on Griffith’s main street was voted down at the council’s March meeting this week.
At present, parking on Banna Avenue between 8:30 am and 12:30 pm on Saturdays is restricted to either two hours or one hour.
Councillor Mark Dal Bon proposed abolishing these restrictions and letting people park for as long as they liked on Saturday mornings.
“[I was] contacted by a lot of shop owners and residents; they asked if a consideration could take place that parking time [limits] could be scrapped on Saturday mornings,” he said.
“This time of downturn in the economy, the residents [will be able to] shop for longer without the fear of getting a parking ticket.”
He also said parents told him they felt they had no time to take their kids for refreshments after shopping, recounting a conversation he’d heard between a child and their mother.
“Mummy, can we have an ice cream and a drink?”
“No no no, we’re in a one-hour parking bay; we don’t have time.”
He said this provoked him to do something about it.
Mayor Doug Curran, however, opposed the motion.
“There are plenty of parks close to the main street that are untimed,” he said.
“It’s about where people choose to park. Council have invested a lot of money on carparks on either side of Quest Hotel and on either side of the police station.”
The Jasnos carpark near Quest Hotel is untimed. Photo: Oliver Jacques.
The mayor said that if the motion passed, council would have to change the signs on the street.
“There’s 150-plus signs in the main street; it would cost us $10,000 to change those signs.”
Cr Dal Bon suggested a way around this.
“We all know the parking rangers don’t come every day. Couldn’t council just arrange it with the rangers for them not to come on Saturdays?” he asked.
Mayor Curran responded by saying there would still be a need to change the signage or they were “encouraging people to break the law”.
Councillor Jenny Ellis also opposed the motion.
“I’ve heard shop owners complaining about the reverse, business owners and workers have parked for longer than they should in areas. If you took away those one-hour and two-hour rules, you would have business owners and workers parking there and it would stop shoppers from parking there,” she said.
The motion was defeated 7-2, with only Cr Dal Bon and Deputy Mayor Anne Napoli supporting it.
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