The marketplace’s centre manager, Richard Watkins, said the reason for the change was “to free up availability for customer parking at the centre”. 

There are 580 car parks under the Sapphire Marketplace and Mr Watkins didn’t believe the changes would cause problems for the mall’s staff as he said there is allocated parking available for employees. 

However, some staff had concerns the change would make it difficult for them in finding parking. 

Dick Smith assistant manager David Sparks said there is no allocated parking, aside from 10 or so spots, and many of the marketplace’s staff have to try and park in the top car park as it allows all-day parking.

However, he said the top car park fills up by about 9am with cars belonging to students from Bega High School and other businesses in town. 

This means marketplace staff who start work later in the day can’t find any free parks up top and can’t park down the bottom with the three-hour limit, so have to park elsewhere, such as on Gipps St. 

Mr Sparks said the only time he has ever seen the bottom car park fill up is at Christmas. 

“Realistically, besides the Christmas period, when have we ever needed this?” he said of the change. 

A concern Mr Sparks had when looking ahead to the early winter nights is how his younger female workers will have to walk past the pub on the main street after they finish at the end of the day in order to get to their car if parked on Gipps St. 

He said a way to fix the issue would be to display a voucher inside or a sticker on the cars belonging to marketplace employees, granting them parking for the whole day.  

An employee from one of the stores, who did not wish to be named, said the move would cause problems for them, because they work a three-hour shift from noon after the car parks upstairs have all been filled. 

“I wasn’t happy about it at all,” they said.

“There’s allocated parking upstairs, but it’s not enough.” 

The employee said they would also like to see people who work in the marketplace get a voucher or sticker to have all-day parking. 

There were plenty of comments made on the Sapphire Marketplace Facebook page regarding the issue, a number of which appeared to be made by employees at the centre. 

As well as further calls for a staff voucher system, comments were made along the lines of questioning where employees were now supposed to park if the top car park is full, saying there’s no room on the top car park as council and main street workers park there, and questioning how they were supposed to move a car out of a timed zone if they do not get a lunch break. 

A WARNING period is currently underway at the timed car park underneath the Sapphire Marketplace.

The three-hour limit was brought in on February 1, however a month’s grace will last until March 1 wherein anyone who breaches the time limit will only receive a warning notice.

From March, those who stay overtime will receive an infringement notice with a $104 fine.

A partnership has been formed between the marketplace and Bega Valley Shire Council, and council rangers will monitor the timed car parking. 

The only remaining car parks in Bega that are not timed are on the lower end of Gipps St and at the Bega Recreation Ground.

A council spokesperson said there are currently no plans to introduce time limited parking at these sites.