Parking woes grow

Peter Farago
WORKERS parking in streets around Geelong Hospital are fuming after City of Greater Geelong recently rolled out its revised car parking strategy.
The strategy aims to address owners’ parking needs in Geelong’s few residential streets on the city’s eastern fringe.
But it’s clashed with workers at one of the city centre’s largest employers – Geelong Hospital.
And because they’re shift workers, the anger runs pretty deep.
Some staff have to walk alone in the dark for several city blocks to find their cars at 10pm – not an entirely safe situation for nurses to face after a late shift.
The parking strategy means changed time limits in the area, favouring residents ahead of workers.
But because building development has drastically cut the amount of parking available in the city centre, hospital staff are forced further out into other residential streets in East and South Geelong.
And shift work means parkandride and existing public transport services aren’t ideal, either.
But there’s potentially a silver lining in council’s ongoing wrestle with parking issues in the city.
Council has proposed building a $9.3 million multistorey car park in Little Malop Street.
It would be the first major parking development in the city centre since Busport, in Brougham Street.
The plan would create 468 parking spaces on a site already providing 124 spots.
A former Geelong mayor, Hayden Spurling, has criticised City Hall for not developing car parking facilities for the growing city centre in the way the former City of Geelong had in past decades.
So this plan, which council says won’t be considered for at least five years, should redress that issue, eventually.
However, council is not the only organisation that should be in the firing line here.
Barwon Health “owns” an entire city block, yet does not supply parking for its employees.