Hobart City Council announces it will allow health workers to park in CBD for free

Health workers will be offered free CBD parking as the Hobart City Council seeks to ease pressures on frontline staff.

HEALTH workers will be offered free CBD parking as the Hobart City Council seeks to ease pressures on frontline staff.

Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds said details were being finalised to allow Tasmanian health sector workers free off-street city parking.

Cr Reynolds said a number of locations had been earmarked for consideration under the initiative.

It is not yet known if free parking will be rolled out exclusively to one parking complex, such as the Argyle St multistorey car park, or dispersed across multiple sites.

SUN TAS. Taste of Tasmania opening day. Anna Reynolds Hobart Lord Mayor. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

“Details are still being worked out, there are a few complicating factors in place that we’re just working through,” Cr Reynolds said.

The vacant Hobart Aquatic Centre carpark was one area the council was “actively considering”, Cr Reynolds said.

“There’s been a formal request submitted to allow parking there and it is one we will consider,” she said.

When asked how the initiative would be managed Cr Reynolds said some ideas were being drawn from overseas examples.

“While we’re still working through those options, I have seen that in some overseas cities the use of dashboard voucher has been implemented,” she said.

It comes after an online petition was created calling on HCC to create free parking for health workers.

As of Tuesday afternoon more than 2700 signatures had been recorded.

“Our health workers are having to do massive shifts, up to 12 hours, then [are] getting called back in after they get home on some days,” the petition reads.

It also says free parking would make life for health workers “just a little bit easier during the current situation”.

A comment on the petition said police officers should also be exempt from CBD parking costs.

In response, Cr Reynolds said HCC would look at “a range of measures” over the coming week.

She also said she would be approaching all 12 elected Hobart councillors requesting that they temporarily relinquish their council allocated parking space to allow for health worker parking.