In the discussions with council, the Shoalhaven Business Chamber and the CBD Committee, the subcommittee concluded the ideal solution was a multi-level facility on the site of the Egans Lane car park.

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An engineer specialising in car parks advised the committee that a multi-level car park would not be suitable in Stewart Place but the Woolworths car park was an ideal location.

“We understand that this would disadvantage Woolworths for quite a while but we want to put our points across about the long term benefits,” said subcommittee member and owner of Priceline Pharmacy Lance Sewell.

“We would look at solutions to minimise disruption and, in the end, it would be very much to their benefit.”

The debate comes ahead of Shoalhaven City Council’s Nowra CBD master plan that will be released in January and will include a strategic parking plan.

According to council’s policy planning manager Neil Southorn, parking demand and supply was a critical part of the plan.

“The master plan will identify and manage traffic through and around the town centre and future parking supply will be determined by traffic movement.”

Councillor Greg Watson said the short-term solution was to decrease time allowance on existing parking.

“By rezoning existing parking we would have three times the capacity without spending any money,” he said.

“Stewart Place at the moment has two- and three-hour parking and that could be changed to one- and two-hour parking.”

Cr Watson suggested a long-term solution would be to purchase a package of land from Woolworths for additional parking.

“I think there would be some resistance from people if they had to pay to use a multi-level car park,” he said.

“There is land behind the Nowra School of Arts which is owned by Woolworths and it is my personal view that it would be more productive to buy that land and add to existing parking.

“If stage two is required then we could look at the possibility of a multi-storey car park.”

Catherine Shields, chair of the CBD Committee, said reducing parking limits was a good short-term solution.

“The problem is people are parking all day in parking which is only two and three hours,” she said.

“The parents and elderly who come in after 9am find it difficult to park close to the shops.

“Shortening the parking limit would assist these people. We would also encourage people working in the CBD to park further afield like the gasworks car park.”