Westfield to reintroduce paid parking at West Lakes from Monday
Customers wanting to avoid paying to park at West Lakes Shopping Centre best head there this weekend, with Westfield set to reintroduce paid parking from Monday.
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Paid parking will be reintroduced at Westfield West Lakes from Monday.
But a local MP has taken to State Parliament to ask the shopping centre to consider a permanent return to free parking.
Westfield removed the shopping centre’s boom gates at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, to provide free parking to its customers and avoid people touching the ticket machines.
A Westfield spokesperson said that with restrictions continuing to ease, paid parking would be reinstated from Monday, July 6.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, Westfield West Lakes has remained open, providing essential and valued services as well as retail jobs for our local community,” the spokesperson said.
“As restrictions continue to ease and the centre resumes full operation, we will reinstate controlled parking on July 6 to help manage carpark demand and to ensure that our customers can continue to quickly and easily access parking when they visit us.”
They said employees could continue to access free parking on the corner of Turner and Brebner drives, on vacant land that was once part of Football Park.
“In addition, temporary free on-site parking is available on the Target rooftop via the ramp off Brebner Drive while local housing development works are completed,” the spokesperson said.
Paid parking was controversially introduced at West Lakes in 2013.
Motorists can park for the first three hours for free, but after that must pay $2 for every 30 minutes they stay, up until five hours.
From there, the price jumps to $5 for every extra 30 minutes until motorists hit the six and a half-hour mark, when the cost is capped at $35.
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Lee Labor MP Stephen Mullighan told Parliament this week the benefits from the boom gates’ removal had been “terrific” and implored Westfield to keep parking free.
He estimated that on any given day – even weekends – only 15 to 25 per cent of the carpark was being used, and said elderly shoppers found it difficult to access the ticket machines.
Mr Mullighan was critical of the staff carpark offered by Westfield, saying it was on vacant land “hundreds of metres” from the centre, which made it unsafe for the many teenagers – most of them young girls working at their first job – forced to use it or pay to park.
“All we would ask is that this corporate behemoth do the right thing by the very people that they ask to shop in their shopping centres, remove these boom gates and start showing some respect to the residents of the western suburbs again,” Mr Mullighan said.
Westfield has been contacted for further comment.