Whanganui parking meters 'regularly breaking down' and set for upgrade

Whanganui's parking meters have brought in close to $200,000 in the last six months alone. Photo / File

Whanganui District Council has carried out 1657 repairs to parking meters in the past 18 months and says plans to upgrade the ageing infrastructure are under way.

"The current parking meters require a lot of maintenance and are regularly breaking down, this is the reason for their impending replacement," council's compliance operations manager Warrick Zander said.

The figure was released to the Chronicle under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act with the council saying the repair requests were for varying reasons.

"The council has plans to upgrade the city's parking meters and is looking to go out to tender for this work in January 2021."

Meanwhile, other figures show the council has pulled in more than $182,000 from the city's parking meters this financial year (since July 1).

In the previous financial year (July 2019-June 2020) the council raised $492,761 from parking meters - however this includes the Covid-19 lockdown period.

In the 2018/19 financial year, the meters raised over $35k more, reaching a total of $527,280.

The council also issued 7962 parking tickets in the year to October 31, 2020.

From those infringements, the council raised a total of $129,216 from 6582 notices.

The remaining 1380 were unpaid, eventually being referred to the Ministry of Justice and logged in court with 393 of those fines were successfully challenged.

Compliance operations manager Warrick Zander says parking control is important in a city CBD such as Whanganui.

Zander said the role of parking control was important in a city CBD such as Whanganui and existed to ensure a fair availability of parking.

"The parking controls ensure a steady flow of traffic and availability of parking in our CBD," he said.

"The parking controls and associated monitoring in Whanganui are necessary to ensure everyone has the opportunity to park and visit the CBD. The money from the meter revenue funds this service."

Neighbouring South Taranaki District - which has no parking meters - has collected just over $60,000 so far in 2020 from infringement fees dished out to motorists parking illegally or longer than signposted times.

The district has a much higher proportion of successful challenges, with more than $26,000 worth of the $60,000 being successfully challenged over 2020.