WORKERS in Mirrabooka are upset a neighbouring business has engaged wheel clamping operators, but the owner says a lack of parking made her resort to the practice.
Amanda Mansell said staff and clients had their cars wheel-clamped after parking outside their business, which moved to Chesterfield Road in March this year.
She said parking had “been an issue” since she and nearly 30 co-workers moved to the site.
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READ NOWThe neighbouring Xtreme Ice Arena had engaged Auto Clamp to police its bays, with drivers forced to pay $170 to remove clamps.
“There’s never no free parking bays even in school holidays, but even then it’s never full,” Ms Mansell said.
“It would be nice if we could come to an agreement at least for Monday to Fridays between 8am and 4pm.”
But Xtreme Ice Arena director Marie Lowick said she had “no other option”.
“We have a limited number of car spaces available to our customers,” she said.
“Our disabled customers don’t come when our carpark is full. Not being able to access a park easily puts people off.
“We didn’t want to do this. We had to go that step.”
Ms Lowick said the facility and its 117 parking bays were private property and believed it was a symptom of a greater parking problem in the growing area.
Stirling Mayor Mark Irwin is pushing for the City to ban wheel clamping on private property and planning officers are investigating how this could be done.
But Ms Lowick argued it was the only reasonable way she could manage parking for customers and said if it was banned, the City needed to “employ better parking management systems”.
City planning and development director Ross Povey said the City was working on the Mirrabooka town centre structure plan with the departments of Planning, Transport and Housing, which “balances the need for parking in the town centre and impact on the road network”.
“Plans for additional public parking to be provided on the library site in the form of a decked car park, as well as new on-street parking within the centre are included in the structure plan,” he said.
“Reciprocal parking, together with the requirement for public parking on each lot, and on-street public parking in Mirrabooka town centre will help to ensure the most efficient use of parking,” he said.
“It allows people to park in one location, while visiting multiple locations in the town centre.”
Mr Povey said there was “a number of options” available to businesses to manage parking: landowners could implement parking fees and time restrictions if they followed planning provisions or enter into an agreement applying the City’s parking local law to private land.
The Department of Communities and Justice relocated to nearby Milldale Way late last year, which provides 108 bays on site for staff.
A seven-storey apartment building and six-storey aged care facility with commercial tenancies have also been approved for Milldale Way, which Mr Povey said would have 175 bays, a surplus of 70, including 22 for public parking.
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