An urban planner has made a damning assessment of the Wingham Plaza car park saying the laneways are too narrow and the one-way traffic flow doesn’t work.
Geoff Clarke of Wingham, who has a Bachelor of Urban and Regional Planning with the University of New England, spent June to August assessing the new car park in front of the Coles supermarket after hearing numerous complaints from shoppers.
“The problems with this car park are so extensive that a complete redesign of the layout is urgently required,” Mr Clarke said.
A common complaint is that the car park is too tight and this arises, Mr Clarke says, from the narrow laneways which make turning into or exiting car parking spaces difficult.
This leads to cars – especially larger family cars and four-wheel drives – parking at an angle with their rear ends on or over the white dividing line.
During peak periods, this results in a domino effect where the next car is forced to park at angle and so on.
“Wingham has a high number of medium and large sized four-wheel drive vehicles which have a poor turning circle,” Mr Clarke said.
“I have watched Nissan Patrol drivers forced to do three-point turns in order to reverse out of their car park and to drive away.
“If any of the rows of cars opposite them has shoppers unloading shopping trolleys into the boots of their cars, the four-wheel drive owners cannot reverse out of their car parks at all.”
Mr Clarke has made a number of suggestions to fix these problems including scrapping the one-way traffic flow and opening it up to two lanes, which would stop traffic blocking the service station lane.
The two-way flow could be achieved by removing one of the two rows of spaces in the car park’s centre.
“I strongly believe it is better to have a user-friendly car park that has less car parking spaces than a tight car park that is difficult to park in and difficult to leave,” Mr Clarke said.
“This ease of parking is particularly essential for the aged population of Wingham.”
The manager of the Wingham Plaza revamp, Jeff Rogers of Mid Coast Property Consultants, said it was important to remember that this was a redevelopment of an existing centre and the finished layout would be the best possible design given the restrictions of the site.
“These suggestions don’t account for the fact that this is a refurbishment of an existing centre, not a whole new design,” Mr Rogers said.
A range of compromises were made back at the development application stage to encompass the wishes of Greater Taree City Council, Coles and the community. The designers initially wanted two-way traffic lanes but this was changed to comply with a traffic assessment by the Hunter Regional Development Committee which found the one-way flow would improve vehicle circulation.
Mr Rogers said he doesn’t necessarily object to the two-way flow but he believes the one-way system will work fine once the rest of the car park is completed.
He said Mr Clarke’s suggestion to widen the aisles by removing a row of parking spaces was impossible because it would result in the loss of a massive 24 spaces.
Mr Rogers reminds shoppers that the car parking spaces were widened to 2.8 metres – beyond the Australian standard – to allow for larger vehicles, which resulted in the loss of six car parking spaces.
To make up for the shortfall, the centre purchased a block of land in Isabella Street behind the centre – at a cost of over $100,000 – which will allow for more staff parking.
The redevelopers are also liaising with the council to establish nose-to-kerb parking in Primrose Street to offer additional spaces.
Ultimately, Mr Rogers said Mr Clarke’s criticisms were premature.
“A lot of it isn’t even finished yet,” Mr Rogers said. “Let’s get the car park out and wait to see how it operates. Till it’s up and running it’s hard to say it’s not working.”
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