Council fails on parking Author: LEADER Date: 05/10/2006 Publication: Newcastle Herald
IN June 2000, consultants made recommendations to Newcastle City Council for a parking policy that would help to overcome the shortage of parking spaces in the central business district.
The recommendations included the introduction of more parking meters to keep the cars turning over near businesses and the construction of several new parking stations to help satisfy longer-term parking needs.
When the council finally adopted the new parking policy in 2002, it did not hesitate to spread the meters and regularly increase the charges for their use. But more than six years after the consultants submitted their report, not one new parking station has been opened.
They are still in the planning stage, according to the council. This is despite the fact that the money from paid parking, which reached $6.8 million in 2005-06, an increase of 30 per cent over the previous year, is supposed to be used primarily for the provision of more parking.
Cr Aaron Buman, a city businessman, has frequently questioned whether the council wants people to come into the city centre to work, shop and do business. It took him 10 months, for example, to get the council to agree in May to set up a committee to look at formulating a five-year parking strategy.
And the decision to form a committee did not put a halt to plans for more meters. If the councillors support the recommendations of officers, virtually the whole of The Hill area to King Edward Park will have metered parking.
The council has postponed making a decision on the extra meters after receiving a petition signed by more than 2000 people, including business owners and people who work in the city. Some of them will have the chance to address the council on November 9.
Their concern is that the spread of costly metered parking will force more businesses and workers out of the city. Some signatories have pointed to the fact that the council, as well as not providing more affordable longer-term parking, also has done little to improve public transport to encourage more people to leave their cars at home.
Public transport improvements were part of the 2000 recommendations. While bus and train services continue to be inadequate and uncoordinated, they won't provide the service needed by many inner city workers. The council needs to press the State Government to actually improve services, rather than just plan cosmetic works for the inner-city railway line.
Drug treatment beds
HEALTH authorities hope that the money the State Government has provided for a pilot scheme to combat amphetamine use in Newcastle $300,000 a year for four years will reduce the need for users to be hospitalised. However, health workers are concerned that there is no provision for extra hospital beds even though the area has one of the state's highest rates of amphetamine use. Overcrowding led nurses last week to briefly ban admissions to the James Fletcher Hospital, one of the drug treatment centres. The Government must be ready to fund more beds if needed.