Page 2738 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 6 October 2021
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Motion to take note of petitions
MADAM SPEAKER: Pursuant to standing order 98A, I propose the question:
That the petitions and responses so lodged be noted.
Parking—Campbell shops—petitions 21-21 and 40-21
MS LEE (Kurrajong—Leader of the Opposition) (10.14): The purpose and content of these petitions are an important issue facing many of my constituents living and working in Campbell. Prior to the ACT lockdown, my team and I knocked on every single door in Campbell—over 1,300 doors—and by far the most consistently raised local issue was the unsustainable volume of commuter traffic within the suburb. This is putting increased strain on the availability of parking at the Campbell shops and increased traffic flow through the narrow roads of the suburb.
Right across Canberra, we have seen substantial growth and densification in our pre-existing suburban footprint. With the substantial urbanisation of Civic and Braddon, urban sprawl is spreading out into neighbouring suburbs like Campbell. Residents have told me that the increased volume of commuters, residents and other road users is putting a significant strain on the existing road network and parking arrangements throughout the suburb.
Local shopping centres like the Campbell shops were planned and designed to sustain a certain number of residents and commuters accessing these facilities. The increased number of commuters parking all day in the narrow residential streets of Campbell is creating dangerous hazards to traffic and pedestrians, including our schoolchildren in the three school zones that exist in the suburb. This is creating significant safety risks for residential streets that are too narrow for two-way traffic to go past parked vehicles.
The volume of commuter traffic using minor collective roads and access streets in Campbell is increasing to an unsustainable level. I have heard from residents that the government’s attempts to fix these persistent issues on a street-by-street basis have only moved these issues from one street to another.
Whilst I and the residents of Campbell welcome the government’s plans to upgrade the Campbell shops, many residents and business owners are still concerned that parking—the single biggest issue with this shopping precinct—is not being addressed in the government’s preliminary designs. Without sufficient parking at the local shops, shoppers will go elsewhere and small businesses at these local shops will suffer.
Madam Speaker, my petitioners are calling on the ACT government to conduct a whole-of-suburb review of the parking and traffic problems in Campbell, with a view to implementing a parking and traffic management plan for the whole suburb. This is an important first step to address the issues that my petitioners have raised with this petition.
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