IF you like to live on the edge and are often a few minutes late to get back to your parking bay, you could be in for a nasty shock in Fremantle.

The council has installed sensors in 52 bays along High Street between Market and Cliff Streets that alert rangers the second you overstay your 30-minute free parking limit.

Depending on how successful the three-month, $26,000 trial is, the council could roll the sensors out to all its bays.

High Street traders’ reaction is generally favourable.

Epicure on High owner Steve Cook says it could “stop people parking for half the day and facilitate a higher turnover of customers in shops”, a sentiment echoed by Bodkins Bootery manager Nick Tsalikis.

New Edition owner Alan Sheardown urges shoppers to use public transport when possible while Record Finder owner Mark Lahogue is concerned it’s just another revenue raiser for council and could lead to parking attendants losing their jobs.

The council’s Matthew Piggott says the sensors will provide useful data about parking habits and “aid enforcement”: “High Street is an important commercial area,” he says. “There is no other information collected other than the amount of time each car spends in the bay, the time of day they are most frequently used and the duration the bays are used or empty.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK