PARKING spaces for people with disabilities are a pertinent topic for resident Tina Mowbray, who uses a mobility scooter and is concerned with people fraudulently using disability parking tags.
Ms Mowbray acknowledged while some older people may forget to put their sign on, she would still like to see an audit undertaken on who is the primary user of current disability parking tags.
“If someone dies, there is nothing to stop family members from using that (tag),” she said.
“There should be an annual check to see whether the sign is still with the person.”
Ms Mowbray praised Wattle Range Council for taking action on the issue, with mayor Des Noll and council staff touring the town to view the challenges of accessibility for disabled people.
Ensuring people with disabilities are able to safely access all council’s services, facilities and functions are key components of the new Disability Access and Inclusion Action Plan.
“Our general inspectors are often monitoring the disabled parking spaces and this year they have cautioned people and handed out fines when they have seen they’re not used correctly,” council development services director Steve Chapple said.
“Items related to disabled parking and accessibility are also throughout the Disability Access and Inclusion Action Plan, which also contains community input from our surveys.”
Council’s building surveyer Chris Tully said general inspectors were vigilant in making sure that people were using parking spaces correctly.
“If people have complaints about fraudulent parking then they are able to contact the general inspectors across the Wattle Range district,” he said.
Millicent resident Delrae Flavel uses disabled car parks and is also conscious of footpath accessibility.
“I think there could be a few more in the main street but I think the corner on Davenport Street and Stuckey Street has been good for people to get around as it has more space than what there was previously,” she said.
“I would contribute to the community consultation.”
Council chief executive Ben Gower said while audits of the disabled parking signs may be a responsibility of the Federal Government, he agreed able-bodied people parking in disabled car parks was a problem which needed to be rectified.
“We have general inspectors for now but in the future, there are apps that can tell us how many times a day disabled car parks are used,” he said.
“If there is a high volume of usage at one of the parks we could make it a ‘hot spot’ for the inspectors.”
