By Casey Neill
Greater Dandenong Council will meet with Little India traders to discuss their parking concerns.
But the council’s business group manager, Paul Kearsley, said there were other factors affecting trade in the Foster Street precinct.
The Journal reported last week that Foster Street Traders Association president Shahid Syed was calling for the council to remove parking meters from Little India.
“We are losing customers,” he said.
Councillor Matthew Kirwan asked about the situation at the Monday 26 February council meeting.
Mr Kearsley said he’d bring the issue back to the Monday 19 March meeting for further discussion.
“There’s some further work identified that will need to be done,” he said.
“There’s an opportunity to perhaps provide further parking spaces, in close proximity.”
Mr Kearsley said the council wanted to meet with Mr Syed.
He said the Indian Cultural Precinct Taskforce – enlisted to transform the area into the state’s Indian heartland – had identified issues with parking.
But it also raised concerns about the retail offering, he said, and the need for more colour and movement.
Mr Kearsley said the taskforce identified projects for the next three to four months to introduce new colour and theming, using some State Government funding.
He said there would be other improvements over next couple of years, including the opportunity for traders to run a festival.
“We’re hoping we’ll be able to address a whole range of issues in that precinct over the coming years,” he said.
Mr Syed said the parking meters came into effect about 18 months ago and caused an immediate decline in trade.
He wrote to the council and local MPs asking for help to remove them.
But the council’s engineering services director, Julie Reid, said an occupancy survey from November last year identified the parking in Little India was between 75 and 85 per cent occupied between 10am and 2pm.
“Parking meters are installed to assist with parking demand,” she said.
“By encouraging users to park for shorter periods and adhere to the time restriction, this increases the turnover and improves the likelihood that spaces are available for customers.”
