The City will
allow central Geelong visitors to use the Civic Centre Car Park‘s 292
unreserved permit car parks after hours, under a new trial.
The new car
park operating arrangement will open up largely-unused parking spaces in the
Little Malop Street arts, culture and entertainment precinct.
The initiative
follows feedback from businesses and users of the precinct, seeking further
nearby parking for visitors to the busy arts, culture and dining venues.
The City will
introduce the change in operation from Monday 16 December.
The car park
currently offers free parking after 6pm on weekdays and all day on Saturday and
Sunday.
However, there
are unreserved permit parking zones on the top three levels of the Gheringhap
Street car park that are mostly empty in the evenings.
Recent
monitoring by the City found an average of 75 per cent of the permit car parks
were vacant from 6pm on weekdays.
The change will
allow visitors to park in those spaces, providing support to those businesses
that experience a surge in trade during the summer period.
The unreserved
permit area will be open for casual parking between 6pm and close daily.
Unreserved
permit holders will retain exclusive use of the area outside of these hours.
The change will
not affect reserved permit holders, who will maintain exclusive use of their
reserved space.
The
following quotes can be attributed to Mayor Stephanie Asher:
This is a
sensible move that will open up more free parking for visitors to the CBD at
night and on weekends.We hope it will
encourage more people to come in and enjoy the food, music, lights and fun in
central Geelong, particularly in our laneways and cultural precincts.
The following
quotes can be attributed to Cr Eddy Kontelj, Brownbill ward:
Business owners
in our laneways were very keen to see this change and I’m glad we’ve been able
to make it happen.It’s a common
sense, proactive move by the Council to support traders in the CBD – adding to
our trial of free 30-minute on-street parking in 2P zones.During the last election campaign and since, I have advocated strongly
to open our city up for business.Opening up more spaces in the Civic Centre Car Park will help
restaurants, bars and cafes attract more business at night and on weekends,
without inconveniencing permit holders who predominantly use the spaces during
working hours.This should also see the exciting transformation of our laneway precinct
continue as new businesses recognise it as a great place to be, and the social
scene will be abuzz, particularly over the festive season.
