Mayor Rod Kendall acknowledged parking pain in Fitzmaurice Street was a handbrake on small business, but promised proprietors he would take decisive action when the Integrated Transport Study is handed down in June.  

“I expect there’ll be decision to give comfort to those businesses,” Cr Kendall said.

“This is a study on which real decision will be made around the middle of the year.

“The issue of variable parking time limits at that end of the main street was a large part of the feedback in consultation that formed the report.

“With a little bit more patience we’ll come up with an answer. The worst thing we can do at this stage is come up with ad hoc decisions.”

Nemo’s Fish and Chips store manager Darryl Kelly said his customers “couldn’t get a park for love nor money” and his elderly customers were walking hundreds of metres for a meal.

“There’s no where near enough parking and it’s running me broke,” Mr Kelly said.

“An 87-year-old bloke had to park at the police station and he hobbled all the way here, it nearly killed the poor bugger.

“I've spoken to all the businesses around here, who doubt council will rip up the median strip after they spent a million dollars building it, but if they don't change something a lot of us will go broke.

“And to make matters worse, they’re lethal on parking fines, I was unloading fish and chips into the store and by the time I came out I had a fine for $106.”

In a poll conducted by The Daily Advertiser, readers were resounding in their support of both 45-degree-angled parking and longer time limits. 

Council’s Integrated Transport Study has been billed as the silver bullet to justify an overhaul of roads, cycle ways and public transport for the next 30 years. 

Wagga Business Chamber president Tim Rose was less optimistic, saying “in five years time there will be another study”.

“There has to be a multi-storey car park built in Wagga and down the Fitzmaurice end we need to see a mixture of parking zones,” Mr Rose said.

Submissions for the hyped document closed in August last year and it’s expected to be made publicly available in July, some 11 months later.