With winter sport kicking off this month Porirua City is reminding people not to park on grass berms near sports grounds, as this causes safety issues and can damage the infrastructure under the berm.

“We love that people are out and about watching their kids play sport,” says Leonie McPhail, Manager Monitoring, Compliance & Customer. “But we also need to keep those young people safe and be respectful to other road users. So we’d be grateful if everyone could play ball and park in the right places.”

Ms McPhail, says the main concern is public safety – with lots of children and young people crossing roads before and after sports.

“Our teams have seen some near misses with drivers reversing off berms, or parking in a way that blocks visibility for people crossing roads, so it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt,” she says.

As well as the safety concerns, parking on berms can damage not just the grass, but the infrastructure below it.

“If water pipes or other underground services are damaged, these have to be replaced, and that costs ratepayers – so we’d really like to avoid that happening.”

A recent check of Porirua City bylaws confirms that it’s an offence to park on a grass berm, so this has now been set up in our systems as something we can issue infringement notices for.

“We’ve contacted the local sports clubs and they support our decision to ticket vehicles parked where they shouldn’t be parked.”

In recent weeks Council officers have been putting warning notices on cars parked on berms, but they’ll now be issuing $40 tickets.

“We gave out 82 warnings over two weekends, so there are a lot of people parking on berms. There’s parking available on the road – not always right outside the ground, but a short walk away.”

As well as avoiding berms, people should also remember not to park on yellow lines or over driveways.

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