Newstead College student Kyle Barrett (centre) gets signatures from Jacob Fleming and Morgan Carlson, both of Launceston, for the affordable student parking petition in the Brisbane Street Mall yesterday. Picture: GEOFF ROBSON
A GROUP of students is set to lobby the Launceston City Council for subsidised car parking.
College students parking in any of the council or Care Park facilities in the central business district pay the same as full-time workers, which equates to between $700 and $800 over the course of a school year.
All day (before 9am to 3.30pm) parking can cost anywhere from $4 to $13 at council parking facilities, while Care Park facilities tariffs vary depending on ownership.
A spokesman for the group, Kyle Barrett, of Relbia, said the cost was exorbitant for students studying and who may only have a part-time job.
He estimated of a student population of 1000 at Launceston College, about 300 drove on a daily basis and if they could get a park for $4 a day, it netted the council $6000 a week.
"College students are full-time in the business district because they have to be to attend compulsory education, so they're completely different to shoppers or other minority groups who might want reduced parking," he said.
Mr Barrett said that the group had received a lot of support so far and had collected more than 200 signatures after one day of canvassing, and was set to collect more over the next week.
Council general manager Robert Dobrzynski said it would be inappropriate to comment until they had received the petition and alderman had considered it.
However, he said there were some alternatives for cheaper parking including:
The Bathurst Street car park at $4 a day.
The Inveresk car park at $3 a day, before jumping on the free Tiger Bus into the city.
"There is also free parking at the council- operated multistorey car parks between 3.30pm and 5.30pm each day," he said.
Care Park manager Tasmania Bob Scholz said he would be happy to hear what the student group was proposing but a decision would have to come from the individual complex owners.
