Tamworth council's carparking survey receives hundreds of responses

Just over 330 people took the carparking survey, while there were more than 3000 visits to the council's have your say page online.

The focus areas of the survey were the Tamworth CBD, the sports and entertainment precinct, Bridge Street and the CBD areas of towns and villages within the Tamworth Regional Council area.

The feedback received by council will go into developing a Tamworth Regional Carparking Strategy.

Of those who made a response, 68 per cent of people were aged between 25 and 59.

And 10 per cent of respondents either had a regular passenger who was disabled, or were disabled themselves.

As for why people were making the trip into the CBD of Tamworth: 38.5 per cent said they were coming in for work purposes; 15.4 per cent said they had an appointment to attend; 31 per cent said they were in town for the shopping; and 5.4 per cent said it was for entertainment, eating or socialising.

Carparking turnover was also addressed in the survey.

Twenty-two per cent of respondents said they preferred to park on the street; 39 per cent would use council carparks when venturing into the CBD; and 5.7 per cent used private carparking facilities.

The length of stay was another concern, where 37 per cent of carpark users said would stay for up to two hours; 30.3 per cent of people are more likely parking all day and 17 per cent up to one hour at a time.

Thirty five per cent of drivers said they would only use the free parking areas.

The strategy aims to make sure Tamworth can cope with parking needs into the future.

Residents who responded to the survey said they wanted to see more all day parking [77 per cent]; more disability parking; more quick parking options [37 per cent]; more lighting in carparking areas [60 per cent]; more CCTV in carparking areas [55 per cent]; and more shared pathways [48 per cent].

This comes as the council looks to develop a shared pathway linking Calala with the CBD.

Just under 41 per cent of people seemed happy to have a five minute walk from parking to destination, and a majority [70 per cent] of respondents said they don't want to, or are unsure about paying for parking.

Now that council has collated the responses they will be used to formulate a draft strategy, which will be presented to the traffic committee and then council before going on public exhibition 'for further community feedback" in early 2024.

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