Westfied Chermside’s new parking system gets green light

Taking a ticket before parking your car will be a thing of the past as one of Brisbane’s biggest shopping centre moves to an automatic paid parking system.

Westfield Chermside will move to an automatic paid parking system this month. Picture: Andrew Seymour

TICKETLESS paid parking is coming to Westfield Chermside as the centre prepares to open 7500 parking bays.

The ticketless system ­begins on March 20 and will use automatic registration recognition to identify cars upon entry.

Centre manager Garth Haslam said flyers would be posted to 80,000 nearby residents warning of the change.

Mr Haslam was confident the initiative would make parking easier for the 90 per cent of shoppers who stayed less than the three-hour free-parking limit.

“(It will) remove the anxiety about having a ticket for 90 per cent of the shoppers,” Mr Haslam said.

For those who parked longer than three hours, Mr Haslam said there were multiple ways to pay, including paying at a pay station, at the gate or by registering for automatic debits online.

Anyone who forgot to pay before leaving would be stopped at the exit gate to pay their bill, he said.

Drivers could check their parking duration while at the centre by entering their registration number into several digital information boards across the facility or checking with the concierge.

Mr Haslam said while some shopping centres had run into trouble introducing their systems, Scentre Group, which controls Westfield, had launched their system at North Lakes with only “minor tweaks” required.

Mr Haslam said centre staff were speaking with customers and flyers were available in-house.

Free parking is available for anyone who spends more than $200 in the centre and redeems the offer at concierge.

How it works

● Your registration will be recorded automatically upon entry into the carpark

● Stay less than three hours — leave seamlessly

● Stay longer than three hours — pay via any pay station at the centre or at the gate, or register your numberplate and payment details online and the centre will automatically charge your nominated bank account