A HIGH Street shopkeeper enduring his worst slump in trade wants Wodonga Council to pause roadworks on the stretch for up to four years.
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Bags ‘N Boots owner Brad Lodding said he had become frustrated at the impact of ongoing High Street work and believes the next stages should be delayed.
“After five years they’re not giving business owners any kind of respite to build up their business or get their customers back,” Mr Lodding said.
“They should be pausing it for three to four years to allow people to come back.”
Mr Lodding said before work began he employed a part-timer and two casuals over 5½ days and he now engaged the casuals for only 3½ days.
“People think they’re punishing the council by not going down to High Street, but they're not punishing the council, they’re punishing business owners,” Mr Lodding said.
Wodonga mayor Anna Speedie said the works could not be delayed for various reasons.
“Cast your mind back just a couple of weeks when we had some significant rainfall and we had flooding in the heart of our city,” she said.
“We know that these works need to be done, we also have the federal funding sitting there that we have a timeframe in which we must complete the works.
“There is never going to be a perfect time for us to do this, we know that.
“This is going to certainly have impact on some of our traders and certainly have impact on some of our community.
“We want to try and minimise that, we want to work together, we also want our communities to stand side-by-side and support our traders, so that the impact is minimised.”
Cr Speedie noted that when the next stage of works began in September it would follow the opening of the Mann Central and Woolworths shopping centres which would boost car parking.
The Havelock Street extension will also open next month to alter traffic flow.
“We’re going to have a significant change really prior to these works commencing,” she said.
“We’re going to have the Woolworths and the Manns sites opening, 805 more car parks in the Manns site, but new retail to draw new people and people into the heart of our city.
“So we will have those areas open, those main streets will be open … parking will be accessible, access to the shops will still be accessible.
“We intend to work a full marketing campaign, directional signage, so that people can still get to our shops, support our local traders and we can get on and finish these works in beautifying our city.”
