Westfield Marion parking fines up 18 per cent to more than $250,000 in 2016/17
SHOPPERS at South Australia’s largest shopping centre have been hit with more than $250,000 in parking fines in the past 12 months – this is significantly higher than the year before. Why?
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SHOPPERS have been slugged more than $250,000 in parking fines at Westfield Marion over the past year, as inspectors crack down on those overstaying time limits at the centre.
Fines were up 18 per cent at the Oaklands Park mall at the end of 2016/17, compared to the $213,644 in notices handed out the year before.
The number of tickets went up from 4190 to 4726, reaching a total value of $252,159.
As SA’s largest shopping centre, Westfield Marion – owned by the Scentre Group – contracts the council to monitor its parking. In return, the council keeps the revenue from the fines its inspectors issue.
When asked why the number and value of parking fines had increased so much, a Scentre Group spokeswoman said the council was responsible for the “frequency of patrolling and issuing of fines”.
A council spokesman said the increase was because the council had “more actively monitored the car park for those who exceeded the time limit or parked illegally”.
He would not say what spurred the increase in monitoring.
Shoppers say a lack of signage in the 90-minute area around the new fresh food mall could be to blame for more people being caught parking illegally.
The mall, in the southwest corner of the shopping centre, opened in August last year, replacing 120 carparks.
Kangaroo Island resident Briony McLaren stocks up at Marion every few months.
She parked outside the fresh food mall at 8.30am one day in March and received a fine.
She said there was no sign between her parking spot and the entrance highlighting the 90-minute restriction. “There was not a sign to be seen,” Ms McLaren said.
Parking is allowed for five hours in most of the rest of the carpark.
Fred Malavich, of Glenelg East, was hit with a fine in the 90-minute area when he went to the cinema and had lunch at Marion in May.
He said it was not clear which area was limited to 90 minutes.
The group of friends he went with would be going to Glenelg for movies from now on.
“They are saying ‘No, bugger this’,” Mr Malavich said.
One stayed later to get a bargain from Aldi – and got a fine too.
“He said the garden shed wasn’t worth it,” Mr Malavich said.
Scentre Group has development approval to add another 770 carparks to the second-storey carpark near the cinema but has not set a date for work to start.
Although it also has permission to bring in paid parking, there is no set date for that either.
Meanwhile, Australia’s largest carpark canopy solar panel installation will be completed this week at Westfield Marion.
The canopies over the second-floor carpark near the cinema have taken about a year to install and will have a generating capacity of 648 kilowatts of power, or about 160 times the average residential solar panel output.
The panels will save about 650 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
Covering 240 parking spaces, they were installed by Origin Energy.