IN A REVERSAL of its August 2017 resolution, Byron Shire Council has swapped new parking meters for new parking time limits in the Bangalow CBD.
Strong campaigning by Bangalow residents and business owners means that new parking time limits will be introduced in January 2018 and monitored for 12 months, instead of parking meters.
“Councillors today voted not to implement pay parking in January next year saying they wanted to first see the results of a 12-month trial of the impact of changes to parking time limits,” Acting General Manager, Mark Arnold, said.
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“Today’s vote replaces the previous resolution made at the meeting in August 2017.
The resolution from today’s meeting will see one hour parking in Byron Street and part of Station Street and two hour parking in the remainder of Station Street for a period of 12 months. These parking time limits will be reviewed during the trial.
Over 2018 Council staff will employ a range of measures including number plate recognition technology to monitor parking demands, the length of time people are staying and the number of infringements incurred by people staying over the time limit.
This information will allow Council to determine where the majority of people parking in Bangalow are from, for example from Queensland, or other parts of NSW such as the Northern Rivers region.
This information will be used to see if the changes to time limits have improved the turnover of parking in Bangalow over a 12-month period.
“Any future time limit changes or additional traffic management strategies, such as pay parking, will be informed by the results of the trial.
“After 12-months a report containing the findings from the trial will be prepared for the consideration of the Council,” Mr Arnold said.
New signs with information about the parking times will be installed in early 2018.