Perth commuters using the Queens Gardens car parks in East Perth will have until October to enjoy free parking before the space is levelled to make way for the East Perth Primary School.
Premier Roger Cook clarified the date of the car park’s closure after a confusing press conference at the site on Tuesday morning where Education Minister Tony Buti initially suggested the entire car park would be closed by the end of this week.
Perth MP and Housing Minister John Carey, Premier Roger Cook and Education Minister Tony Buti at the site of the new East Perth Primary School on Monday.Credit: Hamish Hastie
Cook and Buti announced forward works would begin within days on the $165 million high-rise primary school, but asked when access to the 500 bays east of Horatio Street would be closed he said before Friday.
“It will start this week, signage will be up and there are other car parks. It’s not unusual for car parks to be closed at any particular time, and there are other vacant car parks,” he said.
When pressed over that timeline and whether commuters had enough warning of the car park closure, Buti said the primary school had been thoroughly discussed in the media for more than a year.
Cook then clarified the car park was not closing by the end of this week and that it would mostly remain open while forward works were underway.
“While we are doing preliminary site works, this car park will continue to be made available to the WA public, and for the foreseeable future,” he said.
“The vast majority of this site will be available until October, we will be doing early site works relocating power supply for power services, and things like that, but parking will continue to be free here for the foreseeable future.”
The car park is surrounded by signage mentioning it is the planned site of the new primary school, but there is no mention of when the car park will close.
