Orange's parking officers resumed business as usual last week after an eight-month stint taking it easy on motorists, with new figures revealing the extraordinary extent of their leniency during the pandemic-motivated grace period.
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The most recent numbers from the State Revenue Office show an astonishing 86.5 per cent decline in the number of parking fines handed out from April through to December 31, compared to the same timeframe before that.
The grace period, which Orange City Council previously confirmed was ending on February 1, only applied to motorists overstaying time limits, with warnings being handed out rather than infringement notices.
Fines were still handed out for safety-related infringements like parking in a dangerous location, or parking in disabled spots without the relevant documentation.
The numbers indicate that grace period kicked off in April and statistics show a total of just 629 parking offences recorded between then and the end of the year, compared to 4,629 in the eight months prior to it beginning.
That huge, 4000-fine difference also equates to a significant reduction in revenue raised from parking offences across the respective timeframes.
Between April and December last year motorists parted ways with $187,991 as a result of parking offences in Orange.
Compare that to the $723,343 paid out from infringement notices handed out in the eight months prior, extending from March of 2020 back to August the previous year.
The difference of more than half a million dollars doesn't take January, the final month of the grace period, into consideration either, as those figures are yet to be released by the State Revenue Office.
It equates to an average, monthly decline of almost $70,000 worth of revenue, with the number of fines per month recorded during the grace period peaking at 100 in August and dipping as low as a miserly 12 in April.
That was also the first time the total number of fines issued in Orange in a single month had dropped below triple figures in years, the only time on record in fact, by the State Revenue Office's numbers.
The closest prior to that was the 112 issued in February of 2016.
Despite a warning-first system in place, council had confirmed some drivers had not responded even after receiving multiple chances.
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