Liam McNally
Moorabool council has adopted a new parking strategy to guide the changing parking amenity needs within the growing municipality.
Council began a study into the current and future car parking needs in Moorabool in 2019.
The study found Bacchus Marsh and Ballan currently have 4005 and 1931 parking spaces respectively, and both town centres experience congestion in premium parking areas.
Eight parking “hotspots” were identified, with six in Bacchus Marsh being the shopping centre, primary school, hospital, Bacchus Marsh College, the railway station, and the industrial area.
Ballan’s town centre and railway station was another, and changing town centres of Parwan, Merrimu, West Maddingley, Underbank, Bungaree and Wallace were grouped into a single hotspot.
The new strategy predicts large areas will need to be put aside for parking by 2041.
The five guiding principles for the strategy are to maximise existing use of parking, meet future demands, maintain rural charm of towns, localise parking requirements, and increase other travel methods.
The study into parking in the area gave a significant chance for local residents and businesses to air their concerns about parking in the region, with more than 200 community survey responses and contributions.
The most common needs expressed were improving parking management in residential areas, Improving pedestrian accessibility and safety, Improving enforcement, signage and marking and increased amounts of accessible, long vehicle and employee parking.
In particular, the area around Bacchus Marsh Primary School received the most public comments.
Nearly 30 per cent of the comments related to ideas for improvements to the pedestrian environment through safety and improved connections across roads.
Moorabool mayor Rod Ward said he was pleased with the enormous amount of community engagement that helped form the strategy.
“There was a four-week newspaper advertising, over 7064 social media views, 1250 letters delivered to landowners, 129 online surveys completed and over 100 people attended the drop in sessions or dropped in a submission, that was fantastic community engagement so well done to everyone involved,” he said.
