Pay to park in 2017

Paid parking will be introduced at Albany Regional Airport from January 1 after it was passed by the council on Tuesday.

There will be no charge for the first four hours and after that a fee of $8.80 will be charged per day.

Three parking meters were installed last week at a cost of about $37,000.

City of Albany tourism development and services manager Matthew Bird said last month the forecast annual operating costs would be $28,000 which would include operations, data plans, merchant fees, depreciation and staff costs. “We believe paid parking will reduce current demand and it is anticipated that new parking revenue will exceed installation and annual operational costs for the systems, ” he said.

“The key financial objective is that paid parking will offset the need for significant capital costs to expand the existing car parking facilities if paid parking is not implemented.”

Deputy Mayor Greg Stocks said recently the parking fees were aimed at the passengers parking their vehicles forfree for more than one day.

“Implementing paid parking at the airport is aimed at capturing the current air traveller who is parking their vehicle free of cost for more than one day, ranging from a day user travelling to Perth to the extended air traveller such as the current FIFO workers that may park their vehicles free of cost for up to two weeks,” he said.

“Paid parking will dampen demand and allow better management of the public parking areas.”

Mr Bird said the new system would not affect carpark security, which is monitored by regular evening patrols and 24-hour CCTV coverage.