Editorial: Parking space could be freed up

Parking to change on St Hill St.

Fenton Pettigrew is preparing a petition over parking.

His St Hill St furniture business is suffering because the available parks are in hot demand since the Ministry of Social Development opened its new building earlier this year.

And now a proposal before council wants to reduce the number of existing carparks to make way for the Te Tuaiwi cycle way, now working its way up past City College.

Mr Pettigrew's enthusiastic about the cycle way but his concerns are genuine.

He objects to the proposed replacement of a few dozen angled parks outside of the Ministry of Social Development with fewer, parallel ones.

How council might accommodate both the cycle way and retain the angled parks is difficult to imagine - creative thinking caps are required.

Mr Pettigrew is not the only one impacted by the parking chaos.

With council, various small businesses, the Chronicle, the RSA, the ministry, Land Based Training, etc, all concentrated in the area ... parking is often at a premium.

One wonders why the ministry was not required to provide more parking when it was granted consent to build there. Especially given it was built on top of an existing carpark.

There is rental parking available nearby, some of it provided by council. Perhaps part or all could be freed up to provide additional public parking. And there is private bare land. With co-operation from the owners this too could be developed to provide more parking.

Nobody's business should suffer due to lack of parking spaces - especially when the business was established there first at a time when parks were plentiful.

No doubt the council's parking management plan will address these and similar concerns. It will be interesting to see what solutions they come up with.