THE FOLLOWING WAS POSTED BY SCOTTPJ IN THE OPEN FORUM. IT IS REPEATED HERE AS IT IS RELEVANT TO THIS DISCUSSION

Several years ago, Council installed parking ticket machines in the foreshore area around Nelson Bay marina.

I'm sure Council would argue that it was to control a limited resource, however, it is quite obvious that Council believes that the obvious revenue raising justifies the impact on local residents and workers.

In relation to the entire 366 days of this year, there are an extremely small number of days which are crowded by an overwhelming influx of tourists.

However, outside these peak days, local residents, workers and much needed off-peak tourists are forced to suffer the inconvenience of locking the car, walking to the ticket machine, finding the right change, finding and putting your reading glasses on to work out the machine, getting the ticket (if the machine works properly), walking back to the car, unlocking the car, placing the ticket inside the car and relocking it again.

This process becomes even more difficult if you are a single mother with a small child or older person with mobility problems etc, let alone if it is pouring with rain.

And remember, this goes on all those extra days when there is a surplus of parking available.

In this day of fast everything, convenience and simplicity are king. Developers realise that the fanciest shopping centre is worthless unless there is plenty of close convenient parking avialable or people will not go.

By one beaurocratic stroke of a revenue raising pen, our elected Aldermen have inconvenienced all local residents, and provided a disincentive for tourists to visit as well as the effect on business because of the boycotting of the marina area by potential customers.

I have experienced this same plague in another geographic area wtih the result that it killed the Central Business District within the space of 10 years, because the inconvenience to people made the businesses close down or move and now that same Council has spent many millions of dollars dressing up the CBD to make it more attractive to lure people back. However, the damage has been done and the city centre is dead.

Unfortunately, Council is not accountable for this decision and because of the investment will not reverse the decision and pull out the machines or change the parking arrangements to only be during peak periods because they want to get a return on their investment.

Come on, Aldermen, get real and be in touch with the community you are responsible for. Trash these machines or restrict the days to which they are applicable.

If not, then lets vote out these Aldermen and replace with community oriented people who aren't so politically agenda'd.