By ANTHONY RADFORD

WITH another Christmas car parking crush out of the way, Bendigo is still a long way from securing another multi-storey car park.

A Bendigo Traders Association plan to build a 600-space car park over the Bendigo Creek is seemingly dead, with the City of Greater Bendigo council all but rejecting the plan.

Council Asset Planning and Design manager Brett Martini said a recent study of the available options for a multi-storey car park has forced council back to the drawing board.

Mr Martini said the report, by a local architect and Melbourne-based efficiency expert, pointed to deficiencies in two sites.

“We looked at the plan to build a car park over the creek and on the current council car park site in the corner of Hargreaves and Edward Street,” he said.

“That preliminary work highlighted some concern that the options they looked at didn’t meet the underlying standards for efficiency.

“They were too small and the configuration of the land meant it didn’t work efficiently as a car park.”

Mr Martini said the report also looked at the site behind the council’s Lyttleton Terrance offices.

“That would be an option with the redevelopment of the council offices,” he said.

“However, at this point that is not on the agenda.”

One site the report didn’t look into was the street-level car parks next to Target and Telstra on Edward Street.

“Target wasn’t looked at. Following from this, that is one we will need to look at,” Mr Martini said.

“We are still working through the options to get a preferred site.

“In September the council committed funding to implement a program to create nearly 400 on-street car parks.”

anthony@bendigoweekly.com.au