As a serious park lands campaigner, you won’t find me paving paradise to put up a parking lot, to borrow a line from Joni Mitchell.

But now I find myself having to stand up for the city’s parking provisions. Whilst we would all prefer accessible and affordable public transport, the reality is that for generations, cars have been welcomed with open arms into the city, with more than 38,000 spaces available both on and off-street at affordable prices.

However, for decades, these three-by-six-metre spaces have been sources of debate – and indeed fury – for South Australian motorists. This month, the hot-button issue once again reared its head on the back of reports Council was “doubling” its parking fees.

Whilst there is a perception that paid parking is too expensive and puts the brakes on people visiting and spending money in the CBD, the real purpose is to generate turnover.

This allows more people to visit shops, rather than offering an easy all-day parking option for a few who may be visitors but could also be city workers.

As Lord Mayor, I’ve been on something of a truth-telling mission since I was recycled in November, so here we go again. I feel compelled to remind people that we have it pretty good in Adelaide.

Council has about 10,000 free car parks across on our city streets (in some cases with time limits) with just 2800 requiring you to pay to stay.

The Council provides 6000 of the 19,000 available off-street carparks in the city through its 10 U-Park sites, with early bird and flat rate discounts applying to make parking cheaper.

Off-street parking revenue gives Council a responsible commercial return on substantial land purchases and infrastructure investment, while also allowing easy access to the city and Council to diversify its income streams.

This is a worthy aspiration and the outcome of decades of good management by city leaders in the last century.

Drivers can also now use high-tech systems to help find, book, and pay for spaces across the city.

Obviously, nobody likes being fined and frankly we would all prefer drivers to only pay for the parking they legally access. That means staying out of disability and resident spots as well as overstaying paid spaces.

In the COVID years, parking enforcement was relaxed and seven fewer parking officers were employed. Parking officers have issued fewer fines every year for the past 10 years.

Businesses in our city could not survive if people hogged carparks all day on city streets. Turnover is essential

As part of Council’s 2023/24 Draft Budget, we are proposing a modest increase in on-street parking fees to help repair our finances following the pandemic.

Photo: Brett Hartwig/InDaily

On-street parking may go from $2.10 to $2.20 per hour or $2.80 to $3.10 per hour in some spots.

Some rationalisation of zones and fees will see a more significant change in weekend parking charges. While all morning street parking costs a maximum of $5 across parts of the city on Saturday morning, there are some spaces that only cost $2.60 for three hours.

For consistency, these will now be brought into line with nearby charges in the retail heart of the CBD. That means a maximum cost of $5 for three hours, with mostly free parking after 12pm.

In any CBD, paid parking is a necessity. Businesses in our city could not survive if people hogged carparks all day on city streets. Turnover is essential, and paid parking provides this.

Revenue from paid parking goes towards paying for council services, whether that is supporting events, picking up bins or fixing footpaths (trust me, there are plenty to fix).

We are all creatures of habit. We all know friends who will do laps for 20 minutes until they find a free space directly outside the shop or eatery they are visiting.

We all know that euphoric sense of success when you nab a rockstar non-metered free spot close to your destination on a wet night.

Of course, not everyone will agree with us wanting to encourage turn over on our streets and the use of off-street parking, so I encourage you to get involved in our budget process and provide your feedback through community consultation, which runs until June 18.

Never forget any budget is about choices, so it would be helpful to have advice on which services we should cut or which streets you would avoid fixing to balance letting the cost of parking remain the same.

Dr Jane Lomax-Smith is Adelaide Lord Mayor