Parking meters removed from Eastwood carpark

THE five new parking meters in the Coles-Woolworths carpark between Little Bridge and Eastwood streets will be removed by the end of this week.

City of Ballarat mayor, Cr Ben Taylor said the Smarter Parking initiative has been reviewed daily since its launch two and a half weeks ago, and the Coles-Woolworths carpark has been “difficult.”

“It has been always two hours of free parking here, but we added meters into this area and that’s been confusing for people in how those meters have been positioned,” he said.

“Today, we’ve made the decision to remove those meters in this area and continue to have it as two-hour parking which is free. We’re going back to what it was.”

All five coin accepting machines in the area will be relocated for use in other parts of the network, most likely in the north-west of the CBD near the hospitals.

Cr Taylor said the new parking system, including the CellOPark app, has been tricky for some to adapt to.

“Changing from a system where we had six different meters, down to one in an overall zone, has been a challenge for some,” he said.

“Instead of keeping the confusion that’s in place here, we thought we’d just remove that confusion, go back to what it was, keep it simple and have the two hours free parking in this location.”

Feedback has been directly received from “family, friends and the general community.

“They’ve made it clear that here, some of the meters are probably a little bit too sparse from a visibility pint of view…so the simplest way and the easiest way is to continue that two hours and take the meters out of this location,” Cr Taylor said.

“It’s two hours blanket through the whole area. We also have carparking over at Anderson Street and again, you can park on the street with your first hour for free, and then that $3 an hour.”