ARMAGH STREET PARKING

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27675, 3 June 1955, Page 12

ARMAGH STREET PARKING

30MINUTE LIMIT SOUGHT RETAILERS TO PETITION COUNCIL Parking meters in Armagh street, betwen Colombo and Manchester streets, allow up to one hour’s parking. Shopkeepers in the street are concerned that one of the busiest streets in the city may become a parking place for shoppers who wish to do business in other parts of the city where there is only 30-minute parking, and that as a result, their trade will suffer.

A petition is now being circulated imong shopkeepers in the street. It will be sent to the Christchurch City Council almost immediately. It will seek a 30-minute limit to parking, as in other busy areas of the city. An Armagh street businessman ■ said yesterday that business people in the area were very much in favour of the principle of parking meters, but they did not consider it was fair that there should be parking up to an hour in a street which was probably the second busiest in the city, and where there had recently been 10-minute parking. The result of hour parking might well be that people would park in Armagh street and then go to shop at the otner end |of the city, to the disadvantage of the genuine Armagh street shopper. It was felt, he said, that the proposed arrangement would be detrimental to trade, in that it would not facilitate the most expeditious movement of traffic. In Gloucester street, where it was said that there was only a fraction of the traffic, and fewer than half the retail shops, there was to be half-hour parking. The chairman of the Christchurch City Council’s traffic committee (Cr. N. R. Forbes) said last evening that, if the shopkeepers submitted a petition. he personally would be prepared to give it favourable consider- 1 ation, though it would be for the committee and the council to make the final decision. It was the business people that the council was trying to cater for, in attempting to give as many customers as possible a chance to get to the shops. The City Council’s Traffic Superin- • tendent (Mr G. P. Kellar) said last; evening that the resolutions which ! the council would consider at its 1 next meeting to fix the number, size ' and situation of metered spaces, times I and , periods of parking, and fees | payable, could be amended at any ■ subsequent time. I