Mr Butt is speaking on behalf of some traders in Macqulay St who are angry about parking fines. 95239 Picture: DAMKAN JANEVSKI
A trader who rents a building in an industrial street in Williamstown says he and his colleagues are fed-up with council for slugging them with unfair parking fines.
Malcolm Butt, who has rented a property in the industrial estate on Macqulay St for two years, said over the past 12 months he had been fined $810 in council parking fines for parking his vehicles on the street out the front of his factory.
Mr Butt said Macqulay St had been classified by council as an urban St which means vehicles are not permitted to park out the front of a building for more than an hour.
“Surely, if you’re renting an industrial property here you can park small vehicles or company vehicles in the street but they do not allow it,” Mr Butt said.
“One night it was 11pm on a Sunday night when they booked everything in this area, all the trucks, all the cars, anything that was parked.”
Mr Butt reckons the street should be re-classified to suit the industrial estate.
“It’s black and white with the council every time it’s black and white.”
Mr Butt said the area also had problems with vandalism and graffiti on vehicles.
“A lot of the traders have put up big gates and security options because you cannot even walk along the street overnight.”
He said other traders did not want to talk to Star because they feared any repercussion from the council.
“Some of the traders are threatening to park containers across the side streets to stop the council workers coming in here from 9 to 5.”
Mr Butt said he asked the council for permission to set up an association with six to eight other concerned traders, but was told to join the Williamstown Chamber of Commerce.
“They don’t have anything to do with an industrial area, they don’t understand the complications.”
“It’s just lack of communication if they could just sit down and talk and set up an association that would be fantastic.”
The council did not respond to Star’s questions before deadline.
