Dunedin businesses who joined forces to fight controversial changes to city parking say they are being "fobbed off" by the Dunedin City Council.
[comment caption=Does the DCC now need so many parking wardens?]Cr John Bezett said changes were expected to be announced by late next week, even though he was yet to hear from the group.
The group was formed following angry exchanges at a public meeting in the Leviathan Hotel on July 10.
Leviathan Hotel owner - and group organiser - Peter Laing said he had a list of nine businesses ready to represent the concerns of the 120 people who attended the July 10 meeting, and hoped to arrange a meeting in the coming days.
However, he said there was growing frustrating the council had not announced any changes to help businesses in the days following the public meeting.
"Our impression is they have ignored all our concerns and continued to roll out the original strategy. None of the promises have been kept."
The Fix owner-operator Mandy Smart - a member of the group of businesses - was also angry, saying "absolutely nothing" had changed since the meeting.
She believed the council had decided to keep the new system in place, without changes, for 12 months, before conducting a review.
The complaints came as large numbers of empty parks were evident in the city shortly before midday yesterday, more than two weeks after the city's 153 new pay-and-display machines were unveiled.
Cr Bezett said it was "not true" the council was stalling over the changes, having committed to them at the July 10 meeting. Since the meeting, Cr Michael Guest and council staff had been talking to concerned business owners and considering written submissions from the public meeting, he said.
The council's new working party formed to address the parking concerns had met twice, and would meet again today, Cr Bezett said. Council staff would have to investigate the impact of further changes, and report back to the working party, before the changes were announced as a package next week, he said.
"We are working through the issues as quickly as we can. We accept some people are really upset about it - there's no question about that - but we are taking them very seriously," he said.
