City of Ballarat survey asks if it is necessary to extend paid parking restrictions

The City of Ballarat is seeking community input on current car parking in the CBD to help with future planning.

The council's consultation will ask if it is necessary to extend the paid parking from 5.30pm to a later time, such as 7pm, to encourage drivers to rotate more regularly outside normal business hours.

The Courier received an overwhelming response from residents against the idea, while business owners said there was not enough parking available in the CBD.

Regent Cinemas owner Stephen Anderson said the potential change would impact everyone in the CBD.

"It's inappropriate, especially when there is not enough car parking in Ballarat," Mr Anderson said.

"It's charging people extra for parking. They (council) should be encouraging people to come into the city, not driving them further away."

Irish Murphy's venue manager Tim Fulton said extended paid parking would impact the Sturt Street venue.

He said it would add an extra cost when going out for dinner. People must pay for parking if they stay longer for one hour in a metered space.

"It's hard enough to get customers without making it harder for them to park and dine at our establishment," Mr Fulton said.

"The parking fills up quickly and when you have a fully booked restaurant it makes it hard for people to get to their bookings on time. It's not really good for our business."

City of Ballarat's parking data shows currently between the hours of 9am and 5.30pm, 80 per cent of cars parked in the CBD stay in their park for less than an hour and 20 per cent park for more than an hour.

Two of the 69 car parking spaces in the Armstrong Street North area, Ballarat's busy hospitality precinct, are used for more than three hours a day.

Commerce Ballarat, which has advocated for parking time limits in the past, said there needed to be a turnover of vehicles.

Commerce Ballarat chief executive officer Jodie Gillett said there needed to be a mixture of parking options to make it fair for all businesses.

"One of the issues we see is staff parking outside the front of businesses and I know many businesses encourage staff not to do that but enforcing that paid parking a little later will encourage people to park further away or move their cars," Ms Gillett said.

"The most important thing we need is turnover - we need the cars to be turning over. You don't want people parking all day in front of businesses and that's one of the reasons why we have advocated in the past for bringing back time limits as well to encourage that turnover because some people will just park all day."

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Ms Gillett said according to businesses, 15-minute parks - trialled by the council in Armstrong Street North from April 2020 to June 2021 - were effective.

"We're told they worked really well, that they were really effective and they helped out those takeaway places," she said.

"We need to look at a mixture of parking in order to make it fair for all the businesses."

In a letter to The Courier, Sebastopol's Mardi Cahill said she avoided the CBD due to parking costs.

"I say a big no to parking in the evening ... I now go to Stockland or online shopping. I don't want the risk of having a parking fine," Ms Cahill said.

Mount Clear's Kim Aspland said extended paid parking would add to the cost of living while the council took in more revenue.

Separate surveys for community members and business owners is currently open on the City of Ballarat's MySay page. The survey will be open until May 2.

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