City council set to decide on free parking trial

The Tauranga City Council will decide tomorrow whether to begin a free parking trial in downtown Tauranga.

A decision on whether Tauranga City Council will allow a free parking trial in downtown Tauranga will be made tomorrow.

A similar experiment in the Rotorua downtown has been deemed a success by some, but there are complaints that central city workers in Rotorua are using car parks that could be used by customers.

Free two-hour parking was introduced to the majority of the Rotorua CBD in December last year for an 18-month trial.

Tauranga City Council deputy mayor Kelvin Clout said he was supportive of the free parking trial for Tauranga but plans would be put into place to ensure workers and store owners did not over use or abuse the scheme.

"Downtown Tauranga will do an education programme with the store owners to make sure their staff do not park there," Mr Clout said.

"That's part of the deal and their commitment. If they did allow their workers to park in their parks all day they are shooting themselves in the foot."

Parking wardens would still enforce the fact the parking was only for two hours, he said.

"However, that may mean people may try to move their cars every two hours which would also be a risk."

Mr Clout hoped the trial would bring more shoppers to the CBD.

The council would measure the effectiveness of the scheme during the timeframe.

Mr Clout said if a decision was made to implement the trial it would run for three months starting from the beginning of August.

Eight months into the Rotorua trial, the Rotorua District Council said it would not release any information regarding numbers of parking fines or tickets it has issued, or how much revenue it had lost since its introduction.

The council's acting chief operating officer, Henry Weston, said the council wanted "to give the parking trial time to run its course, gather more data from the parking system, get footpath counts undertaken and engage with inner city stakeholders".

"Then we'll have reliable information and data which can form part of the review of the free parking trial," Mr Weston said.

District councillor Charles Sturt, who works in the central city, said the trial had been a success.

"But there is an element of in-town retailers parking outside other businesses. Some for the whole day.

"I would actually advocate we go down to an hour free [parking], that's ample time for people to do their business. If they can't then they can pay for a metered space.

"I think it has brought people back into the CBD," he said.