By JESSE GRAHAM
UNLIMITED weekend parking on Yarra Glen’s Main Street has got the thumbs-down from a resident, who raised concerns about the lack of restrictions on the town’s busiest days.
Yarra Glen’s Dorothy Winter raised her concerns about Bell Street’s parking in a community event that featured Yarra Ranges councillors and business representatives from around the town.
She pointed out that, while some spaces had three-hour parking restrictions from 8.30am-noon on Saturdays, there were no parking restrictions at all in those spaces on Sundays.
Yarra Glen Chamber of Commerce president Alex Lagerwey said the issue had not been raised with the chamber previously, but could be discussed at a meeting in the future.
He said that while the chamber would never want to discourage tourists from visiting the town, parking restrictions would be needed to accommodate the many visitors coming on weekends.
“The question of parking restrictions is an interesting point – there’s high demands on weekends, when it’s not restricted,” Mr Lagerwey said.
“It seems to be inversely applied.
“It should be driven by supply and demand, rather than days of the week.”
Ryrie Ward councillor Fiona McAllister, who was also present at the event, encouraged Ms Winter to contact her and said she would help to resolve the problem through the council.
A similar situation has occurred in Healesville where the chamber of commerce has been pushing for an extension on parking restrictions along Main Street.
The Healesville group has recently liaised with Yarra Ranges Council’s Community Compliance Department about the issue.
Mr Lagerwey said that there were also many parking places around the town, such as the rooftop parking spaces above IGA, which were underutilised by visitors and offered long term parking off the main street.
He said the next phase of the Embrace Our Street Program would include way-finding signs to parking around Yarra Glen.
