By Shaun Inguanzo
SPRINGVALE traders frustrated with the town’s parking squeeze have enlisted private parking companies to control on-site parking, creating a flurry of confusion for residents and shoppers.
Local traders have defended the move to introduce paid parking, saying it is a reactive approach to central Springvale’s dire parking situation.
Springvale Central Ward councillor Youhorn Chea and Greater Dandenong mayor Peter Brown this week said the private parking employed by traders was linked to the parking crisis but had been a headache for residents and shoppers.
“Springvale is booming, and we certainly need to look at a means of increasing parking,” Cr Brown said.
“But there’s another one that is causing a problem – quite a number of shopkeepers have put in their own private, paid parking.
“As part of their conditions of the permit, shopkeepers have to provide car parking.
“What a lot of them have done is require people to pay to park in car parks and they have put in parking machines, called pay and display parking, and have employed private operators to issue fines.”
Cr Brown said staff at the council’s Springvale office were now dealing with residents who believed the tickets were issued by the council.
He said residents looked ‘shocked’ when told the tickets had nothing to do with the council, and said the fines were not enforceable under council local laws, creating a legal grey area over whether residents were obliged to pay up.
Springvale Traders’ Association president Le Hoa Wysham said traders employing private parking were those tired of their on-site spaces being occupied by non-customers desperate for a parking space.
Ms Wysham said Springvale traders had been lobbying council for increased free parking – the preferred option – for years without success.
“Traders need to kick and scream a lot louder, but I think they have complained so long it is now falling onto deaf ears,” she said. “Council talks about a lot of things.
“They say they don’t have money, or are waiting or whatever, but parking in Springvale has been a problem for a long, long time.
“We have seen money spent elsewhere (in Greater Dandenong), but not Springvale.
“Obviously council places their priority with funding elsewhere,” Ms Wysham said.
Cr Chea said several council parking projects, including facilities near Buckingham Avenue, had been earmarked for too long with little or no action taken.
He said the issue of money was irrelevant considering several multimillion-dollar projects in Dandenong.
City of Greater Dandenong regulatory services manager Peter Shelton said there were no controls for the council to prevent private parking being installed.
“In the case of one centre at Springvale in Buckingham Avenue there are conditions on a planning permit that required them to advise us when they decided to introduce paid parking,” he said.
“It must be made clear that they only needed to advise us – they did not need our permission.
“In the case of the other private properties, there are currently no controls in place that council can exercise in relation to individual businesses installing paid parking.”
