Parking problems

FURTHER to the story ‘Council rejects parking waivers’ (Gazette, 6 July), I wish to advise that the application to develop the first floor of 88-94 High Street Berwick went before VCAT on 25 October.
After just two hours the tribunal upheld the appeal. It was suggested that Casey Council had jumped the gun in implementing its parking precinct plan and had erred by rejecting the recommendations of its own professional officers to approve this application.
The council chose to engage a town planning consultant to represent it, obviously at considerable cost to ratepayers.
When the application went before council, Cr Mick Morland warned that if council refused the application, VCAT would overturn the decision, like it had all other parking waiver appeals.
It appears that someone within the Berwick Chamber of Commerce lobbied Cr Lorraine Wreford, who succeeded in having the application refused.
Parking has been a concern in Berwick for the past 10 years and the same applies to any thriving town.
Why haven’t the chamber and City of Casey fixed the problems after all these years?
Ron Curry,
Berwick.