PARKING meters in the Shepparton CBD are an emotive issue, one that has been subject to ongoing discussion between the traders who are affected by it and the Greater Shepparton City Council which administers it.
In the lead up to Christmas in 2019 and for the month following, Council introduced timed complimentary parking for the struggling CBD, much to the delight of traders and customers alike.
While it did not create a rush of new shoppers to the city, it did produce a more relaxed atmosphere where shoppers were not being penalised for a few minutes after a parking meter had expired.
‘Spendmap’ data just released by Council that relates to the spending patterns derived from bank transactions during this period suggest a mild increase in spending as opposed to anything more dramatic, a sense that many traders would concur with. The free, timed-parking trial period coincided with the summer of bushfires in Victoria that saw several of the town’s events cancelled.
Paul Lelliot, marketing director at Camera House said, “It is not that we saw higher trade figures but it was more about happy customers, people who were not under pressure to meet the time that they had paid for at the meter.”
Peter Dunbabin, director at Focus Cards and Gifts expressed the same sentiment: “It created a more relaxed shopping experience,” he said.
The data is to some extent, perhaps misleading, given that it was taken as a picture of bank transactions for the whole of Shepparton without specifying it was for traders in the CBD alone. A change in spending across the whole region would not be likely to change significantly year in, year out.
The challenge now for the incoming councillors is to live up to their election promises. Most spoke against paid parking and the need to revitalise the CBD.
Speaking on behalf of the Greater Shepparton Chamber of Commerce and Industry, president John Anderson, said, “The best reflection of what is required was in the independent survey conducted among traders and shoppers over the period that indicated 95 percent of traders and the community favoured free timed parking for the CBD. We are campaigning to have the trial period go for longer than a couple of months, 12 months for instance, as a means of assessing its full impact on the region.”
With paid parking having a net financial impact on Council coffers of some $200K, the detrimental impact to traders and shoppers alike is much greater and needs to be reconsidered. It is now up to the new batch of councillors to live up to their promises.
