BY JARROD McALEESE
TRADERS in Beaconsfield are lobbying for parking limits along the Old Princes Highway to be lowered from two hours to 30 minutes in an initiative they hope will ease congestion and improve business.
The strip situated on 36-40 Old Princes Highway is presently a two-hour zone, but owners have raised concerns that this is harming businesses along the road.
Local business owner Michael Muaremov, who has worked out of his Beaconsfield office for 17 years, previously helped campaign to successfully reduce the parking limit, but said this had not prevented individuals from ignoring the time limit.
“A couple of years ago, we were able to reduce the parking limit down to two hours.
“That helped the problem, but we still had people parking there for more than two hours,” Mr Muaremov said.
Mr Muaremov said the current restrictions were deterring established and potential new customers from visiting the area.
“We’re finding a lot of the businesses are struggling because their customers say they want to come, but there’s nowhere to park.
“We’re trying to push for the parking limit to be dropped to half an hour.
“That leaves enough time for customers to do their thing, leave and let there be room for other passing customers.
“If they can’t get a park, they’ll go elsewhere,” Mr Muaremov said.
The lack of parking has forced workers to park their cars on the other side of the road, but Muaremov believes that this creates an unnecessary safety hazard.
“The workers are starting to park across the road, but that’s dangerous especially in the morning and afternoons as it’s a four lane duplicated road,” Mr Muaremov said.
Muaremov, in conjunction with Haas Patel, owner of a Bottle O in the affected zone, have started a petition to address the issue, and have attracted numerous signatures from concerned operators.
“We didn’t stack the petition with everyone in Beaconsfield to get up in arms, but we asked the businesses that were immediately affected to support it, and we’ve got nearly 50 signatures.
“Everyone understands the issue, but now we’ve got to go through the motions,” Mr Muaremov said.
