Loss of car parks now affecting museum

The ''significant'' reduction in the number of parking spaces outside the Otago Museum is starting to affect visitors, the museum's director says.

At a meeting of the council's community and culture meeting last week, museum director Ian Griffin said the loss of parking spaces as a result of the one-way system cycleway's construction had led to visitors complaining about the lack of parking.

While the museum supported the cycleway project, he was disappointed the loss of the parks had yet to addressed by the council.

''I don't want to make a big deal out of this because we do support the work, but we are running an attraction that brings in at least 350,000 people a year, and at least 60% of those are from outside of Dunedin and they generally need somewhere to park.''

Dr Griffin said the museum was waiting for the Dunedin City Council to investigate ways to address the issue, whether that was satellite parking or some type of bus service or another type of service.

''We want to have something in place in our marketing materials that says 'Hey look, there's a bus which comes every half an hour or 15 minutes and you can park there' ... I think that would be a very good solution.''

About 50 new parks were added before work on the project started and at the time the council said it would investigate the possibility of adding more, but that has not been done.

Council transport strategy manager Nick Sargent said the council was aware parking was at a premium in the area and staff had discussed the issue with both the University of Otago and the museum.

The ability to create extra street space for parking was limited, Mr Sargent said.

Changes to paid parking would be considered as a way to increase turnover and provide more opportunities for people to find a park, he said.

tim.miller@odt.co.nz