Car parking issues - Sunshine Coast

[ozbob]

From the Sunshine Coast Daily click here!

Hospital car park too expensive

Hospital car park too expensive

Owen Jacques. | 30th November 2010

SUNSHINE Coast council is expected to scrap plans for a multi-storey car park near Nambour General Hospital in favour of 200 new spaces to be built by the State Government.

The plan will create secure car parking for hospital staff.

The car park will have a boom gate and swipe card access, allowing staff access only during business hours from Monday to Friday.

The Government will provide a shuttle bus service to take workers from their cars to the hospital and back again.

The planned site is at the end of Glenbrook Drive, off Image Flat Road.

Access to the site is through suburban streets.

The plan could prove a bitter pill for residents who live near the proposed car park.

They have vowed to fight the "park and ride".

They say it will create congestion in their quiet street.

The council will discuss the plan in a meeting this morning.

If it is approved, it will be sent to the State Government for final approval.

Although the State Government will be responsible for the scheme, the council will change parking conditions in streets surrounding the health precinct in an effort to nudge workers into the new parking lot.

However, councillor Paul Tatton stressed that those conditions would be put in place only if the Bligh Government acted.

"The park and ride system will be instigated and run by the state," Cr Tatton said.

"It will only be open in business hours from about 7am to 5pm on Monday to Friday."

The site is two streets away from the hospital.

The car park will be built on a tiny portion of the State Government's 11ha block of land.

"It's to free up the area so people generally needing to use the hospital for emergency or outpatients have somewhere to park," Cr Tatton said.

Graeme Ferguson, who lives on Glenbrook Drive, admits there is a problem for nurses needing to park, but he blames the State Government for not planning ahead. "I don't want it to go ahead and nor do residents," Mr Ferguson said.

"We don't want the noise or the traffic and we don't want it clogging up the street."

Mr Ferguson said Glenbrook Drive residents were worried that their home values could drop, especially if the council and State Government decide to expand beyond the 200 spaces.

"I do believe they will make the car park bigger," he said.

"We do feel for the nurses but this is not our problem – this is Queensland Health's problem."

Mr Ferguson said if the plan makes it to the table of State Government, residents will form a group to fight.

"We're already in the process of forming a corporation to fight this – there's 32 of us involved to date."

Independent MP Peter Wellington worked alongside Cr Taton and others to nut out the parking plan and is pushing Health Minister Paul Lucas into action.

Mr Wellington has formally lodged a question to Mr Lucas that requires a response within 30 days.

"This is not up to council, it's a State Government hospital and it is responsible for parking," he said.

It will be a busy day in council's strategy meeting today, with planners recommending against the multi-storey parking lot that was proposed opposite the hospital.

Project manager Paul Coffey has churned through the numbers and found that building a massive car park would be too costly.

Even the option of paid parking was not enough to make the project worthwhile.

A three-storey car park would cost council $9.5 million for 346 new spaces, or $57,755 for each space.

"Car parking is really a problem around the hospital," Mr Coffey said.

"But the park and ride solution, that was the obvious first step to be taken."

Another plan was to have a lot that spanned one basement level and one ground level facility.

It would cost only $5 million to build but each space would be worth more than $100,000.

The council will discuss both motions this morning.

The Glenbrook Drive option is expected to be given the nod for approval next week.

Major issues for commuters trying to access rail services from Nambour as well.  Car parking problems are spreading ..

[Stillwater]

I wonder to what extent the Department of Transport and Main Roads has been involved in the planning for this health workers car park, or has health plugged away at this on its own?  Until the university hospital is built at Kawana, Nambour General Hospital is the major hospital for the Sunshine Coast.  Many people must travel there for health purposes, or to the specialist and diagnostic facilities within the Nambour health precinct.  Wouldn't it be good if the shuttle bus for health workers could pass by Nambour station/ bus interchange and convey the working wounded to the hospital.  Maybe even incorporate the staff carpark in the oft-touted Nambour CBD redevelopment if the nearby residents don't want it.  There seems to be the possibility of some lost opportunities here.