After 45 years on Fitzmaurice Street, Wagga's iconic Knights Meats & Deli butcher may be forced to shut up shop due to an ongoing parking dispute.
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As part of council's levee bank construction, the car park across the street has been closed, which the business says has led to a dramatic 30 per cent reduction in their consumer traffic, and forced the laying off of at least seven casual staff members.
"You can't leave a business four or five months without parking and expect it to remain profitable," said Knights Meats' Deanna McNaughton.
"How can a business sustain itself for that long without adequate parking?"
During peak times of the day, up to 180 customers would walk through their doors, but Ms McNaughton said since the parking was closed on January 14, "you can actually see them driving away now, because there just isn't anywhere to park, or because they assume we're closed."
A statement from a council spokesperson confirmed that the car park is expected to re-open by the end of April.
"[The new car park] will also provide universal accessibility to the Wiradjuri Walking Track along the levee bank. Council is working closely with businesses and residents to ensure car parking availability is maintained and inconvenience is minimised," the statement said.
But when it does re-open, it will reduce the 28 available spots to 18 plus two accessible spots. There is also some speculation over whether some of these spots will be all-day allowances for visitors to the levee bank.
Ms McNaughton believes that by the time of re-opening, the damage may already be done.
"Once customers change their shopping habits, it's harder to get them back," Ms McNaughton said.
"They'll go elsewhere and their habit changes. So it'll affect not just immediate cash flow, it'll be hard to get them back in the long term."
While the car park is considered crown land, during its early years of operation, the Knights Meats business did pay for the sealing and guttering of the grounds.
"In 1983 it was guttered and curbed by the previous [Knights] owner, and that cost around $10,000 of private money," she said.
"We're under no impression that it's not our property, but for the longest time everyone has always called it 'the Knights car park'. We don't own it but we benefit from it during the day and the Thirsty Crow makes good use of it at night."
To alleviate some of the turnover problems, the council granted a change to the time allocations on the remaining seven spots directly outside the centre.
As of last Thursday, the spots were reduced from hour-long to 30 minutes.
"This change was made in consultation with the business to ensure turnover of parking availability during the levee upgrade works. Council rangers act in accordance with time limit signs," the council statement said.