Councillor Reg Kidd will move at Tuesday’s meeting for Orange City Council to investigate the feasibility of using the old Moulder Park netball courts for free parking until an alternate use is implemented.

Cr Kidd said the move would relieve parking congestion in the area bounded by Summer, Peisley, Moulder and Sale streets.

“A lot of those people would be working in the businesses and it would free parking up for shoppers,” he said.

Cr Kidd said the area was two blocks from the CBD and the idea had support from the Orange Netball Association. 

Councillor Ron Gander said he supported the motion for the purposes of discussion and believed it could play an important role, particularly during the Christmas shopping period.

“It’s great to have customers, but if there’s no one to serve them, there’s got to be something done,” he said.

“That’s why a lot of these satellite shopping centres are doing a good job, because you can get a park.”

He supported providing a shuttle bus to get people around the CBD.

“People would say that’s a cost to the ratepayer, well every car park in a multi-storey car park is worth $30,000, so say you go [200 spaces], that’s $6 million for a start – $6 million will provide a couple of little buses and pay their way for a lot of years,” he said.

Staff commented on the item, saying the courts were still used occasionally for markets and bicycle lessons.

However, Cr Kidd believed access could be cut off when other parties needed to use the area.

With access needing to be controlled with security gates and other measures to stop traffic accessing other areas of the park, staff noted there was currently no money in the 2017-18 budget to carry out the work and if approved, it would come at the expense of other projects.