Busy Remuera car park closed due to safety concerns will be redeveloped

Clonbern Road car park in Remuera will be redeveloped by Panuku. Photo / File

A busy Remuera carpark that was closed due to safety concerns will be redeveloped by Auckland Council.

The Clonbern Rd car park, situated by Remuera New World and behind the main stretch of shops, was closed in November last year.

But today, Auckland Transport announced that it will be transferring the car park back to Auckland Council to enable redevelopment by Panuku.

The transfer follows restrictions and closures placed on the car park on numerous occasions due to safety concerns.

The transfer to Panuku is on the condition that any development includes the provision of 200 car parks, which is 20 more than what currently exists at the facility.

Orakei Local Board said it welcomed the news.

"It's exciting to hear that redevelopment of the car park will be happening, and that there will be a fully functioning facility available to the community which local businesses will benefit from with the provision of an additional 20 car-park spaces," Local Board Chairman Kit Parkinson said.

"Orakei Local Board, Remuera Business Association and Auckland Transport have all worked together to get this great result for the community. We are looking forward to working with Panuku."

As it stands, the current car park has 70 spaces on the top deck and the lower deck, which is still open, has 129 spaces.

The upper deck of the two-level carpark is a deteriorating platform that has suffered from water ingress.

Numerous repairs have been made to the platform, but problems remain. The car park was built in 1982.

Auckland Transport had been trying to extend the platform's safe, usable life by limiting the weight it carries.

Initially it banned SUVs, vans, utes and commercial vehicles - any vehicles that weighed more than 2000kg - from the upper deck.

But after many overweight vehicles continued to drive on to the structure, security guards were hired to hand notices explaining the ban.