North Melbourne is growing. With a range of pressures impacting on-street parking including Metro tunnel works, affordable housing developments, growing population, Urban Greening projects and more, it's crucial that we review parking across North Melbourne to make sure it works now and into the future.

That’s why we’re working with the North Melbourne community to understand parking needs for businesses, residents and visitors to help us deliver improvements to on-street parking.

These changes won't be 'set and forget' — we know that it can take several months for parking behaviours to adapt, so we'll give the community time to adjust to any parking changes and will review the performance of the new conditions each year and fine-tune them where necessary. Through this process, parking conditions may evolve over several years.

We have undertaken similar neighbourhood parking reviews in the central city (CBD), Carlton, Southbank, Kensington, West Melbourne and East Melbourne.

We will be back to engage on proposed changes in November 2025 before the first round of updates begin in 2026.

Have your say

Explore feedback on parking from other projects, have your say via the survey below and follow this page for updates on the Community Workshops scheduled in August 2025.

What we heard from North Melbourne projects

We have supported and worked with a range of projects across North Melbourne, and many have received feedback on parking. This has been collated by our team and will be used to support our in-person engagement and first round of changes.

We have received 93 responses as of June 2025:

25 submissions to reduce parking space for other uses (greening, bike lanes, pedestrian access)

  • "There are way too many car parks in certain streets. These should be prioritised as green corridors."
  • "Almost all parking can be repurposed for better things – remove it!"

20 submissions regarding lack of parking availability

  • "Friends won’t visit if there isn’t good parking. Let’s not fool ourselves that the world is all walking and cycling. The older one gets, the more important the parking."
  • "The reduction in parking, combined with non-compliance with parking time limits and lack of council enforcement, has significantly impacted parking amenity in and around Arden Street."

13 submissions on the need for updates or adjustments to resident exemption parking

  • "As a resident living on the city fringe, I struggle with competing for parking space with construction workers who park illegally all day, and other short term city/hospital visitors."
  • "There are cars with permits parking here during the day only, and I do not believe they are residents of this immediate area."

Parking services staff worked closely with the team to develop FAQs and take on key feedback from traders and residents.

Errol Street received 1196 survey submissions with 219 (18%) referencing car parking.

Key themes

  • Overall support of adjustments to create more open space.
  • Concern from traders about access to parking for workers and customers.
  • Concern from locals about congestion.

Quotes

  • "I’m very excited by this plan and think this will hugely improve the area."
  • "Traffic is already congested and there is barely any parking. With the other proposed plans to take away a parking lot where is everyone going to park? Everyone utilises the space we have, no need for more."

Parking services staff attended in-person pop-ups regarding affordable housing sites and participated in the Community Reference Group sessions to provide parking updates.

Victoria Street Affordable housing received 1964 survey submissions with 379 (19%) referencing car parking.

Key themes

  • Lack of available car spaces for all users, residents, businesses, workers and visitors in the precinct.
  • 47 spaces within the car park is a loss for locals.
  • Parking reporting indicates 47 spaces can be supported by the kerbside parking network.

Quotes

  • "Car parking lots are a terrible use of urban space."
  • "Parking has always been a challenge for my patients and it has been getting worse with the increase of residential developments in the area."

Parking Services staff helped facilitate reference group work for the Royal Park Master Plan as well as sit on the ongoing Working Group for development of the plan.

Royal Park Master Plan received 4622 survey submissions with 530 (11%) referencing car parking.

Key themes

  • Parking in a park should be reduced.
  • Parking for key activities such as the zoo, recreation and sports needs to be managed well.
  • Accessibility and access needs to be considered when designing parking in Royal Park.

Quotes

  • "Drivers pollute the park and make it more dangerous for other park users."
  • "Parking is awful; I avoid it by usually walking there."
  • "Parking not acceptable at pavilion - elderly and disabled spectators not catered for."

Parking services staff attended in person pop-ups regarding works on Chapman Reserve.

Chapman Reserve received 301 survey submissions with 34 (11%) referencing car parking.

Key themes

  • Existing pressure on parking for residents needs to be addressed.
  • Parking around busy areas (hospitals and schools) needs to be reviewed.
  • Residents find it difficult to park in their street.

Quotes

  • "There’s always an issue with parking especially on school time."
  • "There is insufficient car park spaces at the present moment, especially during working days. The proposal will remove a number of car park spaces, thereby making the car parking situation worse."

We know there are a range of infrastructure, housing and transport projects being undertaken by the State Government across North Melbourne. These include the West Gate Tunnel Project, tram updates, Affordable and Public Housing changes, and health precinct works.

We work closely with these teams to manage parking and are monitoring these changes to align parking works with the delivery of key changes across North Melbourne.

Key themes from feedback

Several key themes have emerged from feedback to date:

  • Need for better parking availability across key locations for both residents and businesses
  • Consideration of kerbside parking space for other uses in key locations
  • Residential permit exemptions and system updates
  • Review of key usage and space allocation of Accessible Bays and Loading Zones
  • Key land usage such as hospitals and schools need to be reviewed.

We know that parking bays across North Melbourne support on average 5 arrivals per day. In the CBD that number is 23 per day.

By reviewing and updating the various controls such as time restrictions, length of stay or permit exemptions, we can look at incremental increase in arrivals in a bay which means parking is working for more people more often.

News

Follow this page to receive updates by email.



Timeline

  • Timeline item 1 - complete

    Parking and Kerbside Management Plan endorsed

    July 2023

  • Timeline item 2 - incomplete

    North Melbourne parking review

    July 2025 to August 2025

  • Timeline item 3 - incomplete

    North Melbourne proposed changes engagement

    2025

  • Timeline item 4 - incomplete

    North Melbourne improvement works begin

    2026

  • Timeline item 5 - incomplete

    North Melbourne Check-in

    June 2026

  • Timeline item 6 - incomplete

    North Melbourne Annual Review

    Coming soon

Neighbourhood Parking Reviews

We are reviewing and updating on-street parking across the municipality. Tell us what you think about parking in other neighbourhoods.

Contact us

Have questions or want to learn more about the project?