![Improving congestion on Peel Street will be part of the CBD parking strategy review. Picture by Gareth Gardner Improving congestion on Peel Street will be part of the CBD parking strategy review. Picture by Gareth Gardner](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/150521478/88b6551e-e02b-492a-a976-f2f3979f4434.jpg/r0_336_4725_3003_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
THE city's parking problem will come under the microscope as council searches for solutions to the ongoing issue.
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Complaints about congestion on Peel Street and plans for a university campus have prompted a review into council's CBD car parking strategy.
Tamworth Regional Council's director of regional services Peter Resch confirmed at a public meeting the review would home in on how to better utilise space along Peel Street and Kable Avenue.
He said banked up traffic on Kable Avenue was "becoming an issue" due to the "all the recreational facilities" on the road.
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The review of the strategy, which was first adopted in 2020 and is set to expire in 2030, will also assess parking on White and Bourke streets.
"A lot of information will be given to councillors about Bourke Street and White Street, how the zones are in the CBD, and how we are managing those zones," Mr Resch said.
David McKinnon, from the Tamworth Regional Ratepayers' Association, said the review was a "belated" analysis of what has been needed for quite some time.
"A city of Tamworth's size needs a multi-storey car park in the middle of town," he said.
"That's what it needs, and that's what we've spoken about repeatedly."
He said the association had previously fought against selling off car parks on Kable Avenue and Dowe Street, and dumping a slab of concrete in the "middle of a green park [Bicentennial Park]".
The current strategy notes purchasing and constructing new car parks, improving security, light and amenity at existing car parks, and investigating the use of alternative technologies for paid parking as solutions to the issue.
Councillor Brooke Southwell said the strategy was needed to get on top of an "ongoing issue".
"As streets start to fill up I think it's a good step," she said.
With worries that paid parking in the CBD is deterring people from utilising existing parks, councillor Helen Tickle said she hoped the review would consider the ability to remove parking meters from Bourke Street.
"We've got streets that are grossly underutilised," she said.
"I think we need to revisit that, from a financial point of view, and the cost to actually build more car parking stations, and look at what we've got that's vacant."
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