FLINDERS Community Association has lodged a freedom of information application with the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council to find out more about the proposed paid parking trial on Flinders foreshore.
The association’s president Mary Iles said the council had “surprised residents” in May with a plan to implement paid parking at Flinders, charging visitors $6.20 an hour using camera technology and a mobile phone app.
The association wants council to release a consultant’s report that questioned the viability of paid parking at Flinders foreshore and the council’s business case that recommended the paid parking trial go ahead.
The shire is also trialling paid parking at Sunnyside Beach, Mount Eliza and Schnapper Point, Mornington (“Permanent paid parking to depend on trial results” The News 15/6/23).
Iles said the proposed parking fees would impact local aquaculture businesses that operate from the Flinders pier; discriminate against older people that do not use apps or cannot afford a mobile phone; and discourage low income families from visiting the area, who would instead gravitate to the other side of the peninsula where beach parking remains free.
“The planned parking pilot at Flinders has not been properly thought through by Council,” she said. “It will have a direct impact on our local economy, which is already struggling. Furthermore, it will push young families to park further away from the foreshore, exacerbating an already dangerous situation of mixing children and prams with cars and trucks towing boats along the narrow road with a hairpin bend and no pedestrian pathway that leads down from the monument to the pier precinct.
“Council has said that it will consult during the pilot, but that doesn’t explain why the local community wasn’t asked for its views before the decision was taken. And there has been no risk assessment as far as we can tell.”
Iles said her association was “urging the council to reconsider its decision”.
First published in the Mornington News – 18th July 2023
