On Thursday 31st October the CGHB held a public meeting at the RACV Hotel is Hobart.
The purpose was to discuss the current and proposed changes to vehicle access and parking on Collins’s Street in Hobart’s CBD due to the installation of dual bikes.
The meeting was a great success with over 100 people in attendance. While the night was about the bike lane proposal for Collins Street that issue was the tip of the iceberg with business confidence in the Hobart City Council at an all-time low.
Decision being made now as well as previously are having a negative impact on business in the CBD. The city needs to be run on practicality’s not ideologies.
At the meeting a motion was passed to hold a potential elector’s poll and hold the council to account over this issue.
The potential cost of an elector’s poll ($200,000) will be far less than the income the council has lost due to the removal of so much parking in the CBD ($500,000+ per year).
Our next step is to have Ald Bloomfield, Ald Zucco, Cr Elliot, Cr Kelly and Cr Coats present the following motion at the next City of Hobart meeting on Monday 11th November
The CGHB will consider the outcome and make further comment after the meeting.
Edwin Johnstone
Chair, Confederation of Greater Hobart Business
Motion for next council meeting
Motion:
Part 1 “That the current Collins Street cycleway project be deferred indefinitely”.
Part 2 “That the Hobart City Council immediately undertake an independent economic impact study on potential effects to surrounding businesses in Collins Street and surrounding streets in the vicinity including the CBD business district”
Rational:
“Consensus from the meeting held on 31st October was that the current proposal in its entirety goes too far and any future proposal MUST include an independent economic impact study on potential effects to surrounding businesses and the CBD in general.”
“The meeting passed a motion to immediately proceed towards an elector poll should the Council not reconsider its intent on implementing bike ways within the CBD and business prescient to the detriment of the business sector”
Media
Pulse Tasmania
ABC Hobart
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-05/hobart-business-group-threatens-elector-poll-over-bike-lane
The Mercury