Those were among the key options addressed in Lake Macquarie City Council’s draft parking strategy, which is on public exhibition until the end of November.

The report advocated less long-term parking to encourage people to use public or active transport – like cycling – and trialing sensors that show where parks are available. It also recommended doubling the number parking inspectors to four full-time officers.

Licence Plate Recognition cameras mounted on top of patrol vehicles is also being considered as a way to make the workload of parking inspectors more manageable.

“Our current parking management practices contribute towards a host of expensive and undesirable circumstances,” the report noted.

Mayor Kay Fraser said she had always been passionate about not charging motorists to park in Lake Macquarie, but the city needed to look at a range of options – including timed and paid parking – to combat the issue.

Cr Fraser said public transport access and reliability was the key, but councils couldn’t control that.

She wanted to see more people riding bikes, catching buses and car-pooling.

“It’s about making the city more live-able,” she said.

Public consultation that went into the draft strategy showed that motorists found Warners Bay and Cardiff the most difficult places to find a parking space – with 78 per cent of people reporting trouble in Warners Bay and 70 per cent in Cardiff.

The report also found that each parking new parking space in Lake Macquarie would cost between $25,000 and $60,000 – something that needed to be considered given council charged no fees for parking across the city.

Council’s integrated planning manager Sharon Pope said the strategy aimed to manage parking and transport access across the Lake’s nine town centres, on a long-term basis.

“People are more likely to visit our town centres if they know they can get a parking space, footpaths are provided and are well maintained, and there are regular bus services,” she said.

“The strategy aims to maximise the use of our existing parking spaces with a few small changes initially, like line marking and better enforcement of short-stay parking spaces and in the future, use of sensors to let people know where vacant spaces are. With more than 1400 comments, the community provided great insight into parking issues and improvements in the city.”

The draft strategy is available online, at council’s customer service centre and at Lake Macquarie libraries.