A proposed upgrade of the Pearcedale Village Shopping Centre has sparked strong local opposition, with residents raising concerns over the introduction of 90-degree parking and two-way traffic.
Casey Council’s draft concept plans envision converting the existing angled parking bays to 90-degree parking, introducing two-way traffic circulation and creating new pedestrian pathways through the centre of the car park.
The upgrade has sparked heated discussion in the local Pearcedale Facebook group, with local Linda Craven saying: “There haven’t been many things Pearcedale has got this passionate about.”
The long-time resident, who has been living in Pearcedale for more than 40 years, said the 90-degree parking and two-way traffic would make parking worse.
“At the moment, because it’s on the angle, it’s so easy to get a park, and if the parents are picking up their kids, they’ve got more room for the car doors to get them in and out, whereas it would be tighter,” she said.
“It’s only really school time that it gets hectic. If you’re a local, you just know, don’t go down there at that time. And then the rest of the day, it’s easy. On weekends, it’s never a problem for parking either.
“It’s not like it’s even increasing the number of carparks. They’re making fewer parks. It seems pointless to me why they would want to do this, just to put in a few more trees down the middle.
“I think it would be a shock to see that they’re going to spend all that money when it’s not really broken for what it needs to be doing.”
Linda also didn’t see why the Council would want to put a path down the middle of the car park.
“It’s so easy to walk around where the shops and the verandas are, so if it’s raining, you stay dry. It’s not like it’s a huge shopping centre,” she said.
Trees are also proposed alongside the 90-degree parking bays, and picnic tables would be installed at the front of the newsagency and next to the café.
As part of the upgrade, four car spaces will be removed, resulting in 85 standard car spaces.
There are currently three accessible parking spaces, but according to the Council, they do not all meet current Australian accessibility standards, so the project will also deliver three fully compliant ones in different spots.
Two of them would be placed in front of the newsagency, and the last one would be in front of the café.
Tyron Mcharry, who has lived locally for six years and grew up in neighbouring Somerville, shared Linda’s perspectives.
“I know a lot of this has to do with pedestrian safety, but if you’re driving and reversing around with two-way directional traffic, it’s twice as risky. You have to keep not only an eye on the oncoming traffic, but also on traffic moving in the opposite direction,” he said.
He said congestion at school pick-up times was already challenging and worried the redesign would worsen traffic conditions, particularly near Baxter-Tooradin Road and the petrol station entrance.
“Someone else had brought up the ability to bring a car in with a trailer, which is it’s gone with this current design,” he said.
“Now we’ve got a lot of tradespeople that work in and around farm equipment.”
Local Christie Coates said the angled parking “has always worked” and argued that pedestrian safety had never been a major issue outside school hours.
Just like Linda, she also questioned the need for a pedestrian path through the middle of the car park.
“I’ve never in my entire life gone, oh, I wish there was a footpath right through the middle of this car park,” she said.
“It’s not Myers. We’re not at Chadstone.”
Christie pointed out the lighting issues in the carpark, arguing that a lighting upgrade would instead be helpful.
“Every single year, multiple times, we have no lights. The Council has to put generators in that car park. The lights always go off, and it takes like a week,” she said.
“You’re sitting there in pitch darkness in the middle of winter with no lights in that entire shopping centre car park.”
The upgrade has been allocated $365,000 from the Council’s capital works budget.
Construction will start after final designs are completed in April, and construction will finish by 30 June 2026, dependent on weather conditions.
To make your voice heard, submit your comments via: conversations.casey.vic.gov.au/pearcedale-village
The community consultation will close on 10 March.
