Over the past three years, I have been hearing the frustrations from our businesses and public about parking with Whangarei.  I not going to talk about tickets as I too have received some of them, this blog is more about the number of carparks, or lack of.

Despite what some may say, the Whangarei District Council has in fact been slowly reducing the number of carparks within the CBD.  In fact, the flash new green park (which we do need) next to the new Hunterwasser, is removing approximately another needed 120 carparks, and even Councils own planners are producing documents that have less carparking on them for the future of Whangarei.

There are some out in the world of the internet, who believe that everyone should bike, walk or should take a bus, yet those same people have experiences of big (500,000 people plus) cities with great public transport.  That is not Whangarei at the moment. 

There is a dire need of parking, affordable parking, or even say it “free parking” for Whangarei right now.  As most people walk no more than 300m from their vehicles when going shopping, even in large complexes like “Westfields” carparking is setup so that people can see the shop they want to go to.  So do we want the change?

As stated in previous blogs it costs approximately $1000 a day for a business to stay open in Whangarei’s CBD, and if you vote Vince, I will continue to champion the need for more parking, even free parking, so that businesses can stay in the CBD.  For what is a City for if not to go to the bank, shop, visit with friends, eat out or even go to a movie.

Always remember, if people can’t park and shop, then they will go somewhere else, or even online.  Online shopping maybe easy, however the money is not spent locally, if money is not spent locally, then businesses close, and if businesses close then people leave.  Therefore, it is safe to say that parking is a vital part of keeping people in Whangarei and employed.

Hunterwasser, love it or hate it, it will drive parking demands sky high. So where will they park? A point presently neglected by Council. Driving further congestion and strangling the lifeblood further from the CBD.

Votevince.co.nz