EXTRA all-day parking and relaxed parking conditions across Gawler will be implemented this month to allow shoppers better access to Murray Street.

Gawler elected members at their meeting last Tuesday voted to open a temporary parking area at Goose Island, off Eighth Street, as well as to extend council-owned three-hour-limited carparks
on Tod Street, High Street and the Gawler Visitor Information Centre to a four-hour limit.

Council expects the Goose Island carpark will cater for retail workers on Murray Street and open up carparks near the main street for shoppers.

Elected members also moved to proceed with an investigation into the installation of new signage throughout the town, which would direct motorists towards existing parking options, particularly
the multi-level carpark on Finniss Street.

The new signage is expected to cost council $10,000.

Councillor Cody Davies said areas like the Phoenix Plaza and Finniss Street carparks were regularly empty, but that people needed direction to find them.

“A frustrating thing about the town of Gawler is we actually do have carparks, but it’s really inefficiently set up,” he said.

“We have carparks sitting virtually empty and you have people going ‘where are all the carparks?’.

“If we fixed our signage we’d fix a large proportion of our problems with parking in the town.”

As part of the same motion, council delayed a review of its 2017-20 car parking strategy, electing to postpone it until the 2020/21 financial year.

It comes as Gawler traders continue to voice concerns over parking levels in the town and the effect it’s having on their businesses.