Freeing up car spaces for Feilding shoppers will come at a cost

Shop owners in Feilding could be asked to each pay almost $200 a year to fund a car parking system that will introduce time limits, monitoring and fines.

Three-hour parking limits are being proposed by Manawatū District Council for the town’s main shopping streets as a way to free up spaces for shoppers and discourage workers from parking all day in front of stores.

Free, all-day parking has long been used to help promote the town to visitors but the scarcity of free parks in the CBD has been a growing frustration for business owners, shoppers, and the mayor.

Too many spaces are being occupied all day by workers unwilling to park a couple of blocks away.

The council has sought feedback on the plan from CBD stakeholders ahead of a public meeting on Tuesday night.

Its general manager of infrastructure Hamish Waugh said it was a starting point for discussion. The push for a resolution to the parking issue was being driven by businesses, not the council, but it was putting forward a model on how parking could be managed if it was decided that action was required.

The council proposed enforcing three-hour limits on weekdays from 9am to 3pm. A parking warden would be employed, and time monitoring sensors would be installed to assist with enforcement.

It was not considered feasible for income generated from fines to pay for the scheme, so it would need to be funded by the ratepayer.

A new targeted rate for CBD ratepayers, estimated to be $178 per building owner, would account for 25% of the cost, while district-wide ratepayers would be hit with a $10 charge to fund the remaining 75%.

Kate Wild, who routinely had all-day parkers taking up spaces outside her Manchester Square store Turnaround, said she didn’t know what the right solution to the issue was, but putting the cost onto small businesses wasn’t it.

“Our rates have just gone up again, a lot of us can’t afford to pay any more for something like this.”

Her preference was an education campaign, for council staff to speak to every business about the effect of leaving insufficient parking for shoppers.

Mayor Helen Worboys had previously said that approach had been done to death. She laid the blame on staff at banks and professional services, who didn’t rely on walk-in custom or appreciate its impact on the bottom line of small businesses.

Wild said she had recently confronted an office manager and asked her why she parked all day.

“She said to me ‘because I can’.”

With the weather miserable on Monday, Feilding was dead, Wild said, but there were still five cars outside her store parked all day, while both sides of FMG, on the other side of Manchester Square, were “chocka”.

The three-hour parking limits would blanket the town’s shopping district between Warwick St and Stafford St, applying to all quadrants of Manchester Square, Fergusson St, Manchester St, Goodbehere St, McArthur St, and parking bays on Kimbolton Rd – where workers had previously been encouraged to park.

Waugh said applying the limits to the entire CBD was a starting point and if feedback indicated it didn’t make sense to include Kimbolton Rd parking, it could be “taken off the board”.

Wild feared Tuesday night’s meeting would only be attended by the same handful of people as in the past, and that their concerns would “fall on deaf ears”. She encouraged a strong turnout from the business community and Feilding residents and shoppers.

The meeting was set for 5.30pm, August 29, in the Manawatū Room at the Manawatū District Council building at 135 Manchester St.

Feedback on the proposal could be made online, via a form on the council’s website, until September 8.