Page 4005 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 30 November 2022
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One, the new owner of the closed car park, who has done nothing wrong, has fenced the block off for public liability reasons, even though development of the site will not begin for 12 or even 18 months. If the ACT government resumes public liability insurance until construction begins, these 66 parking spaces could be reopened to the public. This needs to happen before Christmas.
Two, the Kippax master plan states that reconfiguring the orientation of existing public car parks could yield up to 20 per cent increase in capacity. This should happen over the slow summer period.
Three, if the government will not take these simple steps, it must open a temporary car park as soon as possible. Each of these requests is rational and doable. Failure to act urgently is irresponsible. I commend this petition to the Assembly.
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee—Minister for Skills, Minister for Transport and City Services and Special Minister of State) (10.08): Ahead of the government’s formal response, I can inform the Assembly that section 53, Holt, has recently closed for development, which is the subject of the petition. The Suburban Land Agency discussed the upcoming closures with the owners of Kippax Fair, and it was agreed that staff and long-stay customers could alternatively use the approximately 400 unrestricted parking spaces within 200 to 600 metres of the subject site on Moyes Crescent and at the Kippax cricket ground.
However, now that the unrestricted car park at section 53 has closed, small business owners have expressed concerns for staff who are unable to access unrestricted parking in those car parks adjacent to Kippax Fair. The Suburban Land Agency and Transport Canberra and City Services have contacted the owners of Kippax Fair to meet this week to propose some long-stay parking in the adjacent car park at section 89, Holt, to be used by staff.
We are looking forward to making some changes to parking arrangements in Holt to facilitate more long-stay parking for staff. For the information of members, there were 64 unrestricted parking spaces in the closed car park at section 53, Holt, which had a peak use of 29 spaces in the last parking survey, which was undertaken by TCCS in May 2022. The adjacent 117 space car park at section 89, Holt, currently has 95 two- and three-hour parking spaces, 16 Park and Ride spaces and six accessible spaces. The maximum occupancy of this car park at the last parking survey undertaken by TCCS in May was 84 per cent. I look forward to providing a more fulsome response in the government’s formal response.
Belconnen—Margaret Timpson Park—petition 28-22
MS CLAY (Ginninderra) (10.10): I would like to say a few words about the petition submitted by Mr Peter Humphries. It has received 268 signatures and it is about Belconnen Town Centre. I hear a lot of concern about our Belconnen Town Centre. We have a beautiful lakefront down there, and we have some great facilities, but we are developing really, really fast. We have a lot of apartments going up and a lot of people moving in, and there is definitely a feeling in Belconnen that our services have not kept pace.
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