Greater Shepparton City Council resolved to provide complimentary on-street car parking in the Shepparton CBD for the months of December and January, at the October Council Meeting.
At the meeting on Thursday, Council also resolved to maintain the current position of providing year-round complimentary off-street car parking in Council-owned car parks across the CBD. The decision comes after Council trialled a number of complimentary parking initiatives within the CBD over the past few years aimed at increasing economic activity and improving visitor experience.
At the June Council Meeting, Council received and noted a comprehensive car parking report that assessed the merits of the initiative and analysed the financial cost to Council.
The report, from Geografia Pty Ltd, utilised a tool called Spendmapp to measure electronic bank transaction data in the Shepparton area from 2018 to 2021. The economic analysis demonstrated that while some categories of business benefitted from the introduction of complimentary parking in the CBD, the overall change in spending in Shepparton was not greatly significant, and followed similar trends to comparable regional cities that had both paid and complimentary parking regimes.
The report also considered the economic impact that the loss of parking revenue would create for Council. The loss of income from on-street complimentary parking is estimated at $1.37m, along with $250,000 per year of lost income from complimentary off-street parking in Council-owned car parks, which was initially introduced in April 2020.
Greater Shepparton City Council Mayor, Cr Shane Sali, said the income received from parking was partially used for CBD improvement projects and promotions, and school crossing programs.
"The adopted two-month period of complimentary parking in the Shepparton CBD aims to balance the financial interests of Council. It also aims to provide residents and visitors with a positive shopping experience when visiting our CBD traders during the Christmas and New Year periods," he said.
"We also have plenty of complimentary off-street parking spaces available which provides options to cater for people who don't want to use the PayStay app or coins.
"Council has offered complimentary parking initiatives for several years, most recently complimentary on-street parking from November 2021 to February 2022 to assist with COVID recovery. By committing to two months of complimentary on-street parking each year we can now look at addressing our parking infrastructure to ensure it best meets the needs of all users."
The initial report noted at the June Council Meeting also recognised the greatest use of on-street parking was in the areas around the CBD where people can park all day and not have to worry about time limits.
Cr Sali said it was important to note that there was capacity for more parking in the off-street car parks with many not being utilised to full capacity.
"With all of this information before Councillors, it was considered appropriate to continue to provide complimentary off-street parking and paid on-street parking," he said.
"Councillors are confident the CBD has a strong future and look forward to seeing its continued growth and prosperity, particularly now as we move towards the completion of the Maude Street Mall Redevelopment."
Councillors also voted to update the Shepparton CBD Car Parking Strategy 2020 to include complimentary on-street car parking for the months of December and January each year.
