CONSTRUCTION of the new Wagga Rural Referral Hospital is continuing to cause parking chaos for nearby residents and businesses.
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Parking spaces in the streets surrounding the hospital site – including Edward, Murray, Oates and Docker streets – are seldom seen during work hours with construction staff and hospital workers taking up a significant chunk of the available on-street parking. Construction workers aren’t permitted to park on hospital grounds.
Parents at St Luke’s Anglican Preschool in nearby Docker Street are forced to fight over just six designated timed parking spaces at drop-off and pick-up time. The preschool has five families with children enrolled for each car space available. Parents who can’t find a space during peak drop-off and pick-up times are forced to park up to 200 metres away.
The chair of the Anglican Parish of Wagga’s preschool subcommittee, Kim Hoey, said this posed safety problems for children. “Parents are finding they’re parking quite a long way from the school,” she said. “The parents feel this is dangerous for the children.” Preschool management had been in discussions with Wagga City Council about creating extra timed parking spaces out the front but were told it wasn’t an option as it would create issues for surrounding homes.
Ms Hoey said the current parking situation had left parents “a bit frustrated”. “There’s discontent about it, but what can we do,” she said. The preschool community is hopeful the parking squeeze will ease once construction on the new hospital finishes at the end of the year.
Nearby residents are also feeling the effects of the parking pain. Murray Street residents are concerned about parking at the new hospital once complete. “I am told by parkers in our street that no extra parking has been allowed for at the new Wagga Base. Why should we, the residents ... be disadvantaged due to council’s failure to think forward?” one resident, CJ Buckland, said.