SHOPPERS ONLY: Macrossan St small business managers say customers ‘parked out’ in Port Douglas
PARKING DILEMMA
Shop managers along Macrossan St in Port Douglas say they’re losing business because potential customers can’t get anywhere close to park, and they’re blaming staff and workers from other businesses nearby.
One manager Newsport spoke to said one particular business could have up to six or eight cars parked along the street at one time.
And she said, customers have complained to her that because they’ve had difficulty finding parking, they’ve had to shop elsewhere.
Several in the shopping strip have said there needs to be a crackdown on parking.
“The council’s saying that we need money. If Local Laws (officers) went out every day, they’d clean up,” a shop manager who preferred not to be named, said.
He said he believes a lot of the prime main street car spots are being taken up all day by people working in some of the businesses and other strip shops on Macrossan street – who instead, should be parking further away or in car spaces allocated to their shops or
businesses.
“If a tourist’s car parks in front of my work, 95 per cent of the time they will get out of the car and walk straight into my shop.”
“They’ve all got two legs; they can walk,” another shop manager told us.
“There is plenty of parking in Port Douglas, you just have to park a distance away and walk to your business.
“We’ve got doctors’ surgeries; people can’t park to go to the doctor’s. You think of all the coffee shops that are missing out on people coming in to get a coffee.”
Another complained that since the COVID pandemic, there seems to have been a lapse by Douglas Shire Council in monitoring the limited times in the main street parking spaces.
“It’s that knock-on effect. They’ll park in the loading zone and then they’ll get in trouble because they’re in the loading zone. But all they wanted was a coffee and then go, and all the car parks are taken with all the workers that work nine ‘til five.”
Complaints to Council
A few of the business owners and managers are planning to officially complain to Douglas Shire Council.
“We’ve got all these signs that the Council at some stage years ago paid for, saying ‘two- hour parking’. Maybe they need to take those out if we’re not using them," an owner said.
“I’ve got friends who’ve got businesses in Noosa and for many years, you have not been able to park your car on the main street; they have to park their car and walk.”
Ironically, she said, the visitors to Port Douglas seem more mindful of the two-hour parking limits, probably because they’re used to tougher policing of the rules where they come from.
“The tourists are reading it because they’ve come from overseas or Sydney or Melbourne, they’re utilising it and they’re the tourists we want to come in and spend, but the locals just do whatever they want.”
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