The City will allow central Geelong visitors to use the Civic Centre Car Park's 292 unreserved permit car parks after hours, under a new trial.
The new car park operating arrangement will open up largely-unused parking spaces in the Little Malop Street arts, culture and entertainment precinct.
The initiative follows feedback from businesses and users of the precinct, seeking further nearby parking for visitors to the busy arts, culture and dining venues.
The City will introduce the change in operation from Monday 16 December.
The car park currently offers free parking after 6pm on weekdays and all day on Saturday and Sunday.
However, there are unreserved permit parking zones on the top three levels of the Gheringhap Street car park that are mostly empty in the evenings.
Recent monitoring by the City found an average of 75 per cent of the permit car parks were vacant from 6pm on weekdays.
The change will allow visitors to park in those spaces, providing support to those businesses that experience a surge in trade during the summer period.
The unreserved permit area will be open for casual parking between 6pm and close daily.
Unreserved permit holders will retain exclusive use of the area outside of these hours.
The change will not affect reserved permit holders, who will maintain exclusive use of their reserved space.
The following quotes can be attributed to Mayor Stephanie Asher:
This is a sensible move that will open up more free parking for visitors to the CBD at night and on weekends.We hope it will encourage more people to come in and enjoy the food, music, lights and fun in central Geelong, particularly in our laneways and cultural precincts.
The following quotes can be attributed to Cr Eddy Kontelj, Brownbill ward:
Business owners in our laneways were very keen to see this change and I'm glad we've been able to make it happen.It's a common sense, proactive move by the Council to support traders in the CBD – adding to our trial of free 30-minute on-street parking in 2P zones.
During the last election campaign and since, I have advocated strongly to open our city up for business.
Opening up more spaces in the Civic Centre Car Park will help restaurants, bars and cafes attract more business at night and on weekends, without inconveniencing permit holders who predominantly use the spaces during working hours.
This should also see the exciting transformation of our laneway precinct continue as new businesses recognise it as a great place to be, and the social scene will be abuzz, particularly over the festive season.
