Look out! Baw Baw PARKING PATROLS boosted
 Baw Baw News   By // 14:15, Tuesday 28 November 2017

Parking patrols in Baw Baw have been “significantly” increased in response to community demands.

Baw Baw Shire Council has been grappling with limited parking and a growing population, and mayor Joe Gauci said increasing patrols is hoped to make in-town parking better.

“We are continuing to consider viable options for increasing parking spaces in these towns but want to offer fairer use of the available spaces in the meantime,” Cr Gauci said in a media release.


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“Council acknowledges that many community members obey the parking rules in time bays and in restricted parking areas such as disabled spaces and loading zones.”

Cr Gauci said there is strong community support for increased patrols, which were approved at last week’s council meeting.

A two-week warning period for illegally parked vehicles was also adopted, suggesting fines from the increased patrols will not begin until 11 December.

Baw Baw’s community compliance team has issued 577 parking infringements this year as of 30 October. Over half of those were in Warragul, over a quarter in Drouin, and most of the rest in Trafalgar.


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Fixing the Warragul CBD

The increase in patrols came in response to a report from council staff on parking in the Warragul CBD.

While the council can freely patrol parking on public roads, it does not patrol private car parks at businesses like supermarkets. The staff report suggests Warragul alone has 232 private parking spaces.

Agreements between the council and several private car park owners previously allowed patrols to be extended into those sites but have been allowed to lapse. The report states the agreements are being renegotiated.

Data from the report largely draws on the 2015 Warragul Parking Study, which defined the town’s “principal CBD area” as Smith Street between Queen and Albert, Palmerston Street between Smith and Queen, and Victoria Street between Smith and the McDonald’s drive-through.

The 2015 report found the busiest parking period for on-street parking in the area was between 11am and 1.30pm, with a bump at around 3pm.

At midday on weekdays over 90 per cent of spaces were occupied.

The street parking occupancy graph from 2015’s study. Source: Baw Baw Shire Council.

Critically, that data does not include the Woolworths or Coles car parks and predates the opening of Newmason and its underground parking spaces.


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While Mason Street was not considered a part of the principal CBD area, recent and planned developments could have a significant impact on the street’s importance. In fact, Cr Gauci once said it could become Warragul’s “main street.”

Outer CBD parking occupancy rates reached a peak occupancy of 70 per cent in the 2015 study period.

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6 responses to “Look out! Baw Baw PARKING PATROLS boosted”

  1. A J (Bert) Jell says:

    I would suggest that council look at the number of spaces that council staff occupy opposite te park area in Drouin the area seems to be off limit to the public thus reducing the available spaces for the public, it shows a lack of forethought by the shire when they decided to set up in Drouin again

  2. Suellen Ham says:

    Often after driving around and around, particularly near the Post Office, I give up and leave it for another day. Parking is getting to be a real problem in Warragul, and it is often exacerbated by people parking over the line.

  3. John Doe says:

    Well said Bert!!! When it comes to the BBSC, there are obviously rules for some and then there are rules for others.

  4. Belinda Eastwood says:

    I point the finger at certain business/shop owners and their staff that continually park in the Main Street all day. This is the problem of who is taking up customers parking. The very same shop owners then complain that business is slow. Pity they can not see the harm they do to their own and other shops profits, just because they can not be bothered to park in the all day parking areas.

  5. Gerard Dovey says:

    I can only agree wholeheartedly with the remark by A J(Bert) above with regards council parking in Drouin. It seems council workers have completely taken over huge areas of public parking that they occupy for the whole business day. I suggest enforcing of a one to two hour parking rule, and that council develop a plan for car sharing by council workers.

  6. John says:

    And BBS wants to become an RV friendly shire. Huh they missed the boat 20 years ago. No parking spaces for cars let alone rigs and caravans.