View parking issue will end with lake front development

A Queenstown Lakes district councillor believes the development of the Wanaka lakefront will mean an end to the perennial issue of drivers ignoring signs and parking on the lakefront grass reserve during the New Year holiday period.

Wanaka ward councillor Quentin Smith said parking on the grass was an ongoing issue during busy times, but the issue had been much worse four or five years ago ago.

Much work had been done to improve signs, increase the number of bollards and educate the public, resulting in a "massive amount of improvement".

The council had also hired parking enforcement contractors, who were "active constantly" during the New Year period and he would be finding out how many tickets they had issued, he said.

However, one of the goals of the council’s lakefront development was to be better by design, not enforcement.

"It is much more effective to design out the solution than to be constantly enforcing," he said.

"Bollards are a good example — if you can’t get there, you can’t park there," Cr Smith said.

He acknowledged there had been very few users of the council overflow car park (off McDougall St in the rugby grounds), and almost no users of the new private paid parking in Dungarvon St.

There had been relatively limited parking on the grass and other issues this year, "but people are sheep and when one does it, others follow".