At its meeting on May 13, Council endorsed a linemarking plan to improve traffic flow between Railway Street and Arthur Street and reduce delays at the Lackey Road intersection.

To create two lanes of traffic in each direction, four parking spaces would be lost outside Moss Vale’s oldest business, Whytes, and a further nine spaces would be lost on the other side of Argyle Street, opposite Arthur Street.

Businesses affected learned of the plans only after chamber vice-president Kathy Barnsley spotted the decision in the Council minutes.

In a letter to Cr Julia Arkwright, Whytes owners Brad Gipson and Monique Gipson Whyte said to lose the spaces would be disastrous to the 87-year-old business.

They suggested that instead of eliminating 13 parking spaces, Council could consider restricting parking in the busiest times, from 8am to 9am, when Lackey Road workers were travelling to work and parents were dropping off schoolchildren, and from 3pm to 4pm,

Removal of the footpath garden outside Whytes, reducing the footpath width, would provide enough space for two lanes of traffic and leave the business with parking space, they said.

The letter also suggested that right turns into Lackey Road and left turns into Arthur Street could be prohibited.

“Whytes is a destination store and brings people to Moss Vale, and I am sure that our customers do frequent other business in the town, thus keeping business in Moss Vale,” Mr Gipson wrote.

“We only have to walk down the main street now to see so many empty shop fronts - will we be next?”

Business owners at a Moss Vale Chamber of Commerce meeting on Monday said they understood the need to cater for increasing traffic coming from commercial developments on Lackey Road and from new and planned residential developments elsewhere in Moss Vale.

“We’re happy to be flexible, but we need the opportunity to have input,” past-president Jason Besters said.

The chamber passed a motion asking Council not to proceed with the work until businesses were consulted.

Traffic committee chairman Paul Tuddenham, who did not attend the May 13 meeting, said the committee’s intention was that the proposal be endorsed for public exhibition and comment.

“This needs community consultation,” he said.