COUNCILLORS voted to kill off paid parking for good at last week’s Mornington Peninsula Shire council meeting, putting an end to the contentious trial that faced widespread backlash from residents, business, and various groups.
The shire had tested paid visitor parking at Sunnyside Beach, Mt Eliza, Schnapper Point (near the pier), Mornington and near Flinders pier in the trial that was halted on 14 September last year. The trial was initially intended for 12 months after starting in December 2023 but lasted only nine months after community concerns prompted the shire to suspend it for further review. Issues included beachgoers using shopping centres and church car parks to avoid paying for parking, leading to a drop in trade for businesses and stopping church congregations from meeting; an issue raised by Cr Bruce Ranken at council’s 17 December meeting. Residents also expressed frustration at the requirement to provide “extensive documentation” to receive a free parking ePermit, among other issues.
But the scheme was ultimately scrapped by councillors at their 28 January meeting after council officers presented a report to consider abandoning a visitor paid parking policy. Those supporting its dumping were Crs Bruce Ranken, Cam Williams, Anthony Marsh, Andrea Allen, David Gill and Stephen Batty. Crs Kate Roper, Michael Stephens, and Patrick Binyon however voted not to ditch it. Crs Paul Pingiaro and Max Patton declared conflicts of interest and took no part on the discussions or vote.
Councillors then voted in favour of creating a shire-wide parking management policy that would “provide a clear framework for managing parking across the shire and address growing demands from increasing population and visitation”. According to a council report, the shire is the only bayside council between the peninsula and the city that does not currently have a parking management policy. In developing a parking management policy, the shire would use its in-house team, and not outsource the task to consultants, The News understands, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“As we’re abandoning this visitor paid parking policy, it will address the immediate community feedback that halted the controversial pilot project,” Ranken said at the meeting. “It’ll help with the longer-term planning, developing a parking management policy [that] will provide a structured approach to address future parking challenges in the area and obviously there will be some cost savings there from budget reallocation.”
He said some of the key issues had been raised by businesses, particularly with loss of trade, adding some reported up to a 30 per cent drop in revenue. Ranken said there was also a need to address the “immediate needs of the dissatisfaction from residents”. “We’re going to work with the community here… to be able to rebuild that trust.”
Roper, who voted against removing paid parking, said the council spent millions of dollars each year on various foreshore projects “that need to be funded by ratepayers, and this [paid parking scheme] was a way of getting the visitors to help pay for some of that infrastructure”. She said big projects currently included reinstating the Birdrock Beach stairs in Mt Martha and repairing the Beleura Cliff path. “I believe in that user pays principle, so that’s why I’ve supported paid parking in the past. Unfortunately, we did have a lot of problems,” she said.
“We’re one of the few councils that doesn’t have parking on our foreshore, on our beaches. It was a very clunky system, and I think our officers will all agree that it was problematic, but we did learn a lot.
“We do have to be sustainable, this is becoming more and more difficult in this climate, and this was an idea to help pay for that really important coastal infrastructure.”
According to the Mornington Peninsula Shire, the visitor paid parking pilot was planned to help pay the costs of the shire’s foreshore and tourism-related infrastructure, which is about $8 million per year.
The estimated revenue of the pilot if it continued over 12 months was $805,000 in parking fees and $1.2 million in fines. But the report noted, “It is clear through the evaluation of the pilot, that there are key issues that need to be addressed before future implementation of visitor paid parking”.
Speaking of a shire-wide parking management policy, Cr Allen said it “would be great in a perfect world, I would prefer to see that funding go towards tangible solutions such as the one proposed for Sorrento [paid parking] or other wards that have already been adopted but not yet implemented”.
First published in the Mornington News – 4 February 2025
