Beaconsfield parking woes fall on deaf ears

By Melissa Grant
Cardinia Shire councillor Brett Owen is calling on Spring Street to use the land for additional car spaces at the station, saying its “unacceptable” that nothing has been done to ease commuters’ parking pain.
“There’s plenty of land there on Beaconsfield Avenue between the old station master’s house and current car park,” he said.
“They have plenty of land to construct car parks if they wanted to.”
Cr Brett Owen said the council had written to the Minister of Transport Lynne Kosky, requesting more car parking at Beaconsfield Station, but didn’t have much success in recent times.
Forty-nine car spaces were sealed and an extra 71 were provided at the station in 2007, but Cr Owen said more could be done.
“It’s just not enough,” he said.
“People are forced to park in residential streets and reserves on the grass.
“It really is unacceptable when we are trying to make more people use public transport.”
Government rail agency VicTrack owns the land in question. When asked about its future, a VicTrack spokesman said the agency would like to see vacant land around the Beaconsfield Station used for transport and community purposes.
He said the provision of extra parking was a matter for the Department of Transport.
In a letter to the council’s general manager assets and services Mike Ellis in July, Ms Kosky’s chief of staff said extra parking at Beaconsfield and Pakenham wasn’t a priority.
“While the need for expanded parking at these stations over time is recognised, the Park and Ride program will be focussing on other higher priority sites in the short term,” the letter read.
A Department of Transport spokesman said both stations recently had the car parks extended as part of Park and Ride stage one program.
While Beaconsfield was upgraded in 2007, there were 56 parks built at Pakenham station in 2008.
“In addition, both stations are served by bus routes that have been upgraded to operate seven days a week,” the spokesman said.