LAST week The Bunyip reported that Gawler Council were investigating options for a potential second multi-storey carpark (‘Proposed multi-storey car park ‘future proofing’ Gawler CBD’, February 15).
Fast forward a week and you can see exactly why.
The closure of the town’s multi-storey carpark on Finniss St has exasperated a problem that has been plaguing Gawler for years.
It is hard enough to get a carpark in town at the best of times, let alone an all day one.
But with little to no warning, the car park was closed, throwing the already competitive car parking battle into chaos.
Today, Evanston Park woman Megan Dibben told The Bunyip she has received almost $200 in fines since the start of the year.
Mrs Dibben works on Murray St but doesn’t have the luxury of being able to step out and drive around looking for an alternate space every three hours.
It’s a similar story for Nick Bevan, who also works on Murray St, who is averaging “a ticket every four to six weeks”.
Ironically enough, a long-time Bunyip contributor remarked on Tuesday morning that it’s “bloody hard to get a park in Gawler these days”.
Granted, the work on the mutli-storey carpark was needed.
You would be hard pressed to find someone that would argue against undertaking work to prolong its life and reinforce the structure.
But there’s two issues: lack of communication and a lack of alternative options.
It is all well and good to conduct the work, but there needs to be other locations readily available.
Or at least relax the rules a little bit, particularly when it’s predominately employees parking in the
all-day spaces.
Advanced notice needs to be given so people can have the time to plan, and not just drive in one day to find half the area blocked off by fencing.
Another multi-storey car park in town should absolutely be the long-term goal of this administration.
The size of Gawler’s population is only going to go up, and with that comes increased traffic and more competition for motorists.
It goes back to what this writer said in this very column last week.
Now is the time to get these things in place.
