“You’d be forgiven for thinking shopping malls like their customers to return again and again.

“But on the Kapiti Coast north of Wellington, repeat shoppers have been slapped with $65 parking fines – for returning too quickly between visits.”

This story by Joel Maxwell from a few days ago suggests that it could.  The Coastlands mall is run by Colliers who engaged Wilsons Parking for their parking enforcement.  From our experience, neither of these businesses are ones you would want to choose in their respective fields.  The latter often features on the Fair Go TV program.

There has been a large number of comments on the Kapiti Coast Facebook page about Coastlands — none of them positive.

It’s potentially good for the Waikanae town centre, though — if the Park and Ride carpark for train commuters was operating!  At present parking in the town centre is as bad as ever.

Although there has been no commercial development announced (and hopefully there won’t be) near the ‘Ewy’ interchange in Waikanae’s Te Moana Road, there has been plenty around the Kapiti Road one in Paraparaumu in the past two or three years; it could well replace the Coastlands area as the Paraparaumu town centre if it continues.

Another positive outcome — but much less likely — would be that Dougherty abandons his obsession with spending huge amounts of Ratepayers’ money on the existing Paraparaumu town centre.  As commented before, it has had more than its fair share.