By Susie Cunningham 

COUNCIL is looking at ways to address ongoing concerns about parking in Boonah, recently adopting the draft Boonah Town Centre Parking Study 2011.

The Scenic Rim Regional Council’s draft study, which is open for community consultation, draws on submissions from the business community and provides recommendations for how to improve the situation.

Four recommendations are made in the document, including two hour and four hour time restricted parking in the centre of town, ways of encouraging compliance with time restrictions, improvements to council owned off-street parking and a review of parking for people with disabilities.

Local shoppers and business representatives have raised concerns about a recommendation that council encourage compliance with time restrictions by investigating the use of Volunteers in Policing (VIP) to undertake parking surveillance and issue reminders about parking restrictions.

Both the Boonah Chamber of Commerce and the Boonah Butchery, who made submissions to council for the report, said they had concerns about the suggested approach.

Chamber president Adrian Stephan said while he believed the volunteer approach could work in principle, it could have social ramifications in the small town and was not necessarily the answer.