Brendan Simpkins

JOSEPH D’Souza is facing the prospect of closing his business, Gawler Slice Pizza, due to parking problems on Murray Street.

For more than a year Mr D’Souza has been requesting help from Gawler Council to obtain a permit which would allow him to park his car in front of his shop.

The space directly in front of the takeaway pizza restaurant is a loading zone, and the parking spaces nearby are quickly snapped up.

On some days, Mr D’Souza is forced to park in the Dan Murphy’s carpark.

This makes it difficult when it comes to deliveries, with Mr D’Souza having to run for a distance to his car with his pizza bag and bottles of soft drink in his arms.

Recently he was slapped with a $73 fine while loading deliveries when his car was parked in the loading zone.

Mr D’Souza said he couldn’t afford to keep paying parking fines while attempting to run a business.

“I don’t know what to do, if this is the case and I keep paying fines than it is not worth it for me to run (the business),” he said.

“It is a lot of money every month if I keep going and it’s not worth that.”

Mr D’Souza told The Bunyip council has offered to give him a two hour parking spot but he argued that wouldn’t help the situation given that he could not predict when delivery orders would come in.

As an alternative, Mr D’Souza had attempted to offer deals for customers who chose to pick up their orders rather than the delivery option.

However, not everyone had the ability to pick up their order, and therefore delivery was the more convenient option.

He said that delivery orders were his main form of business and without it he would struggle to make money.

With vacancies in the buildings around Slice Pizza, Mr D’Souza argued that the loading zone was now unnecessary.

“We have been telling (council) for a while to at least come and see how many loadings are done on this spot,” he said.

“Before I agreed (with having a loading zone), when businesses were there they all had frequent loading but now they are not there, they are shut.

“I am the only one in this spot at the moment, so what’s the point of having it?”

Mr D’Souza suggested implementing a system where he could be issued a sticker to place on his windshield that would allow him to park in the loading zone.

Parking ‘plagues’ brow business

JUSTINE Friend will move her business from Gawler once her current lease is up in four years, if a solution to Murray Street’s parking problems is not implemented by then.

Mrs Friend, of The Eyebrow Studio Gawler, said on average staff are issued with three parking fines a week.

But the problems were not only limited to staff, with clients also experiencing issues which often resulted in them arriving late to appointments.

Speaking to The Bunyip on Friday, she said all of her clients up until 12.30pm that day had been late.

As a result, clients have chosen to take their business to Elizabeth where parking is less of an issue.

She said that parking had been a plague for her business since she set up shop in 2018 at their previous location further north on the street.

Mrs Friend said discussions had been held with Gawler Council in the past where she was informed that permits are issued to landlords at the start of the year.

“Our landlord knew nothing about it and LJ Hooker, who manage the property, knew nothing about it,” she said.

“I don’t know where that was plucked from.”

Staff are forced to continually shift their cars due to parking limits and have safety concerns when working late night shifts.

Mrs Friend said an ideal solution to the problem would be to issue more permits to businesses along Murray Street.

“I don’t see what is so hard and fast about permits for people who work here,” she said.

“How else is it going to work? They can’t keep charging us, it’s just unfair.

“This is a massively growing town with all the new developments, they need to do something pretty quickly in regards to parking for everyone.”

Gawler Mayor Karen Redman said that feedback had been provided to council last year following the instalment of time restrictions at the Woolworths and Big W carpark and a Car Parking forum was held as a result.

Council approached Woolworths to reconsider the decision.

Ms Redman said that changes were made to offset the change at Woolworths.

“Council sought to offset this impact by increasing timed car parking from 3 hours to 4 hours in some key locations,” she said.

“During last year’s Christmas period, Council established two temporary car parking areas to assist in what was understood at the time to be a possible solution to car parking concerns raised. It is noted that neither of these alternate sites located at Goose Island, Murray Street south were used by either businesses or customers.

“Council understands that staff at a number of businesses experience frustration with a perceived lack of all-day parking, close to their place of employment. This is an ongoing issue across the town centre.

“The provision of all day staff car parking ultimately needs to be balanced against the provision of convenient short-term customer car parking required to support local business transactions, and timed parking within key retail precincts such as along Murray Street is vital to achieving this balance.”

A whole of township approach to a parking permit system is yet to be in place, however with a review into council’s Town Centre Car Parking Strategy to occur in 2021, Ms Redman said this was something that could be considered as part of the process.

Currently, a historic permit system is in place, but is limited with only 18 permits re-issued to businesses.

“The issuing of such limited number of permits is based on historic arrangements with those businesses located immediately adjacent to Council off-street car parks at High Street and Tod Street,” Ms Redman said.

“This historic permit system will also be reviewed as part of the 2021 Car Parking Strategy.”

More car parking options would also be considered in the review process.