On July 20, Kiama resident Gordon Bell contacted The Bugle asking us to meet him at the Kiama Railway Commuter Car Park (KRCCP) on Bong Bong Street. We tried to arrive early, but weren’t familiar with it and had trouble locating where it was.

Finally, a little late, we came upon a fairly sized car park with a boom gate that we’d never noticed before. Mr Bell says our inability to find the car park was an apt description of his main problem with it.

“I reckon that 95% of people in Kiama don't have a clue about this car park. It was opened in April 2021 and yet it hardly seems to get used,” says Mr Bell.

The KRCCP is a 40-space car park for commuters using public transport. They can use the car park for free for up to 18 hours at a time as long as they tap their opal card at the boom gate after usage. Non commuters are charged at a flat rate after 20 minutes.

Mr Bell believes that commuters are either not utilising this resource, or they have no idea about it. To back up these claims, Bell visited the KRCC everyday from June 1 to June 28 between the hours of 11am to 12pm and recorded the number of cars parked inside.

He found that on most weekdays there were upwards of 30 available spaces in the car park and on weekends/public holidays there was even less use, with the number of available spaces never getting below 33.

“We have a resource here, on weekends and public holidays, that basically gets no use whatsoever. There's one handicapped and 39 other spots. So what's to stop them saying when you come on a weekend and a public holiday that you can park here even if you aren’t commuting,” says Mr Bell.

Mr Bell presented his findings to Kiama MP Gareth Ward and presented his solution for the car park to be made available to the public on weekends and public holidays.

“I strongly support Gordon Bell’s survey findings, which clearly observe a vacant and underutilised publicly owned car park at times when our town is full to overflowing,” says Ward.

Ward then sent a letter to the Minister for Regional Transport and Roads, the Hon. Jennifer Aitchison, who replied in her own letter, “NSW TrainLink is not considering opening the car park on weekends to the Kiama community at this time, and notes that public parking is available around the station in local streets.”

Ward has now requested a meeting with Transport for NSW to discuss the matter further and he hopes that they can come to an understanding about the situation.

“I’m always happy to work with the Government and Department to get results for my community. But there is no need to knock back a sensible request coming from the grass roots, such as this, to relieve parking when there are clearly free spaces that could be used by commuters or locals,” says Ward.

The Bugle attempted to contact Minister Aitchison for a comment and was put through to a Transport for NSW spokesperson. The spokesperson wrote, “To ensure that there is sufficient parking for public transport passengers there are no plans to open the car park boom gates on weekends. Public parking is available around the station in local streets.”

So, any action has hit a standstill and with the Akuna Street car park scheduled to be closing soon, Mr Bell has appealed to The Bugle to circulate this information in an attempt to get Minister Aitchison to reconsider her position.

“People are desperate to find parking spots,” said Mr Bell. “And it’s a ripple effect and to have 40 spaces here absolutely doing nothing, especially on weekends and public holidays, seems like a waste of a public asset.”

When The Bugle visited the KRCCP on July 20 it was the weekend of the Kiama Readers Festival and there was minimal parking around town, but the KRCCP was almost completely barren with 38 empty spaces.