The Sunday News
Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, Plumtree Correspondent
PLUMTREE Town Council has temporarily suspended plans to introduce paid parking in the border town’s Central Business District which was set to start this month.
The local authority had indicated that it would commence charging motorists parking fees in the CBD from 1 February.
However, Town Secretary Mr Davies Dumezweni Luthe said the local authority was still working on final modalities to introduce the new system.
“We will still be introducing the pre-paid parking system but not on the date that we had initially announced. This process doesn’t happen overnight but it takes some time and we are still working on some modalities.
Members of the public will be notified when we are ready to implement the paid parking system,” he said.
The local authority announced that motorists will now be expected to pay 50 cents for 30 minutes parking in the CBD.
The paid parking will apply along Kingsway, Dombodema, Commonage and Tekwane roads. The development is in line with the council’s 2017 budget of $5 million. Council said this was a way of decongesting the CBD and also improve revenue streams.
Plumtree Town Council administration officer Mr Elvis Maphosa recently said the money that will be collected through paid parking will augment money collected through road levies.
Under the paid parking system reserved parking is going to be created for motorists who work within the CBD and they will be expected to pay a fixed parking fee.
Motorists in the border town had vowed to avoid parking in the CBD to evade parking fees.
