Big changes for Tauranga car parking | Bay of Plenty News | Local News in Bay of Plenty

A temporary carpark is planned for Tauranga's former Cliff Rd netball courts to help clean up the area's parking mess - but about 75 workers will lose their all-day parks.

The $2.50-a-day carpark will take some of the overflow when the council moves to stop random parking over the grassy berms in the oldest part of the city between the police station and The Elms.

However, the move to clean up Park St, Monmouth St, Brown St and Cliff Rd will result in about 75 downtown workers having nowhere to park once the carpark opens.

The council this week agreed to make the netball courts available for parking until the area's long-term future was decided. The plan was subject to public consultation and the granting of a resource consent.

A report to the meeting said the establishment of Tauranga's Museum on Cliff Rd, or some another project, would effectively spell the end of the temporary carpark.

Council transportation operations manager Martin Parkes told the Bay of Plenty Times that an average of about 200 vehicles parked on the berms in the four streets, with pressure for all-day parking growing to where cars were now starting to spill over into Mission St. He said there would be a net loss of about 75 parking spaces once the 72-vehicle carpark had been built and the council tidied up the situation on the berms by digging into the grass far enough to create some angled parks. Mr Parkes stressed they were only dealing with the berms and not touching the existing roadside parks.

Eight of the spaces in the new carpark will be reserved for users of the former netball pavilion, with the rest left for commuters.

The report highlighted how the berm parking spilled over onto footpaths and intersections, creating safety issues for motorists and pedestrians. The cars were unsightly for residents and damaged council services such as water valves.

Councillor Larry Baldock said the mess created by the berm parking was well overdue to be cleaned up. Councillor Murray Guy called it a shambles: "It is an embarrassment."