THREE 'priority' blocks could be about to receive lined parking following a $15,000 donation from the Bathurst business community.
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Business identities Peter Rogers, Graeme Burke and Tony Gullifer worked together to generate the donation to the new Mayor of Bathurst Charitable Fund, on the condition the money was used on a lined parking roll-out.
A further $6000 has also been pledged to the fund.
It's all in an effort to increase the number of available parking spaces in the Bathurst central business district.
To achieve that goal, the lines would need to be drawn to achieve 60-degree angle parking, rather than the 45-degree parking spaces Bathurst is used to seeing.
The 60-degree lined angle parking is proposed to be rolled out in the following locations: Keppel Street between Seymour and Bentinck streets; Russell Street between Bentinck and William streets; and Howick Street between William and George streets.
"They're the main blocks we had interest in," Mr Rogers said.
"We've had to raise money from the private sector to do this, because council hasn't got the money, and they were the three sections where people have been prepared to put some money in privately to get it happening."
Why lined parking is needed
Most of the on-street parking in the Bathurst CBD is at a 45-degree angle, with no line marking to guide motorists.
Mayor Jess Jennings said it's common to see vehicles parked at the wrong angle or parked too far away from the next car.
Lined parking, as seen in parts of George and Keppel streets, has been shown to increase consistency in parking, ensuring that all the available space can be used.
In addition to this, changing the angle to 60 degrees would create more parking spaces.
The number of spaces on those three priority blocks currently stands at 167 and would increase to 210 under the proposal.
"Pushing it to 60 degrees gives us a total, just on those three blocks, of 43 extra spaces," Cr Jennings said.
"We don't have a figure for how many extra spaces you get by simply having lines marked versus no lines marked, but, anecdotally, I would have thought there's a 10 to 20 per cent gain from having lines marked as well."
He said parking has been a concern for quite some time, and with the council quite cash constrained, the donation is much appreciated.
"There was no way I was going to ignore that kind of generosity and contribution," he said.
He described the proposal as a win-win.
"It's a win from the businesses' perspective in the CBD and the users of the CBD, but it's also a win for council in that we're not actually forking out the money for this to get these three priority blocks done," Cr Jennings said.
"And, then, once we've gotten through these three priority blocks, I'll be looking to try and complement these in further budgeting allocations to try to get a wider coverage of line marking through the CBD."
A two-step process
The proposal has been put to Bathurst council in a mayoral minute to the April 17, 2024 ordinary meeting.
Should the majority of councillors support it when asked to vote, then the proposal will be referred to the council traffic committee's next meeting for consideration.
"We've basically tried to set this up so it's as smooth as possible and as quick as possible," Cr Jennings said.