Brisbane residents dobbing in illegally parked motorists at rapid rate

COMPLAINTS about illegal parking have accelerated— with motorists dobbing each other in at record levels. Now Brisbane City Council has identified where most of the complaints are coming from.

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FED-UP Brisbane residents are dobbing in fellow motorists to parking inspectors at record levels, leading to almost $27 million worth of fines being tipped into local council coffers.

Most of the dobbers have come from trendy inner-Brisbane suburbs.

Council figures obtained by The Courier-Mail show people in Brisbane’s CBD, West End, New Farm, South Brisbane and Greenslopes led the snitching on illegal parkers.

In the 2014-15 financial year, there were 23,735 complaints about illegal parking, or 65 every day, up by 14 per cent from the previous year.

Illegal parking accounts for the biggest proportion of complaints received by council.

However, while the number of complaints was up, council revenue from fines dropped from $28 million in 2013-14 to $27 million last year.

Council infrastructure committee chairwoman Amanda Cooper partly attributed the decrease in revenue to the 2014 Parking Taskforce report, which made 55 recommendations to improve parking across the city.

“Some of these recommendations have already been implemented, including free short-term parking, trials for improved signage, improved passenger drop-off zones and safety improvements around schools,” Cr Cooper said.

“As a result, we’re seeing a marked difference in safe, legal parking in Brisbane, which is reflected in the number of fines issued.”

Motorists in Brisbane’s CBD paid the highest bill of almost $7.5 million for 59,077 fines last financial year.

Drivers in South Brisbane and Fortitude Valley were the next biggest spenders, with $2.8 million and $2.4 million tabs respectively.

Cr Cooper insisted the proposed Brisbane Metro would help alleviate parking complaints through the creation of additional kerbside space from the removal of many CBD bus stops.

“While many other councils, such as those in Sydney and Melbourne, are aggressively reducing parking requirements, Brisbane City Plan forces developers to include a minimum number of car and bicycling parking spaces for new housing outside the CBD,” Cr Cooper said.

“This helps to ensure that new housing will reflect the vehicle needs of residents. The minimum car parking spaces required by council reflects parking uses in units right across Brisbane and are higher than those in Sydney and Melbourne.”