Changes to Tauranga City's parking regime are being viewed with scepticism and suspicion by some centrally-located retailers.

'It is still smoke and mirrors as far as I'm concerned, nothing's changed really,” says retailer Bill Campbell.

City retailer Bill Campbell thinks the city parking will make no difference to shopping in the city.

Tauranga City Council announced late on Monday it is dropping parking prices in the central city parking zone from $3 per hour to $2 per hour, from Monday, September 23.

'A dollar an hour is not going to make any difference. They are obviously not listening to what the public want. They are not listening to our survey, and not listening to what the businesses wanted. They all want free parking and yet they still ignore it,” says Bill.

'Whether it's a dollar, two, or three – it's still about the money. I mean if you were going to go anywhere you would still go to Bayfair, the Mount or Greerton, rather than spend $2 for parking in the CBD, with the chance of getting a fine as well.”

Parking at Bayfair is free, while at Greerton and Mount Maunganui it's mostly free, but with time limits.

'A dollar's neither here nor there. It's really an issue of parity. It's the same issue it hasn't gone away, it's just changed the angle,” says Bill.

A $3 per hour, $2 per hour and $1 per hour parking zones system was introduced on July 1.

TCC transportation manager Martin Parkes says the former CBD ‘blue zone' is reduced from $3 to $2 an hour because feedback from the public and the Mainstreet board tells the $3 zone was driving people out of the city.

'The idea of putting the fee up to $3 was to try and create a turnover in vehicles using those core spaces,” says Martin. 'The beauty to this system is it is very flexible, we can change fees in reaction to what's happening in the market.”

In May Bill presented Tauranga City councillors with a petition signed by more than 3444 central city customers calling for free parking in the city. It was ignored by councillors because staff consider it 'skewed”.

Bill also organised two petitions in March, seeking feedback from businesses and customers on parking in the CBD. The petitions sought signatures based on two questions relating to free parking in the city.

It asked building owners and managers whether they believed ‘free, monitored parking with reasonable time limits would encourage more people into the CBD?' The petition received 312 replies – 292 agreed, while 20 disagreed.

A second question was put to members of the public while they were calling at central city shops and businesses, asking ‘would free monitored parking with time limits encourage you to visit the CBD more often?'

After three weeks 3444 people agreed and 35 disagreed, says Bill.