Newcastle City Council has been talking greedily of introducing parking meters at 11 suburban shopping strips despite the likelihood that metered and lucratively policed parking will drive shoppers to the already burgeoning shopping centres. These shopping strips need higher parking turnover, the council says, when the truth is that they need to retain the shoppers they have. The lie that is the council's turnover mantra is evident in its plans to introduce meters at beaches, sports areas, and anywhere else that attracts people in cars. Of course, the council is considering meters at suburban shopping strips and beaches for the very same reason, revenue. And bear in mind that a big source of the council's parking revenue is parking fines. Cop an $86 fine when you're delayed at a clothing store in a suburban shopping strip and the clothing stores in the nearest shopping centre with free, unlimited parking will become much more attractive. In my column in The Herald today I suggest that the council's apparently insatiable greed for parking revenue may amount to sabotage of these suburban shopping strips.

I question, too, whether the Newcastle CBD continues to need the oft-quoted turnover of parking spaces. It seems to me that the number of shoppers visiting the city is low, that the majority of people in Hunter St are workers out for a break from offices or lingering retailers. If there is a shortage of street parking in and around Hunter St it is more likely to be created by the high proportion, perhaps a third, of spaces occupied all day by workers' cars displaying a disabled parking sticker, many of them dubious. Making employers responsible for providing close, but not necessarily free, parking for disabled staff would overcome this problem, and employers would be bound to have a close look at the so-called disability. Indeed, an employer may even seek an assessment by another doctor.

I believe Newcastle council's greed for parking revenue has become a predatory tax and one that poses a mortal threat to suburban shopping strips. In what light do you see the council's likely expansion of meters to these suburban strips and beaches, sports venues and other recreational areas?