GRAND PRIX GOLD, RESIDENTS LEFT IN THE GUTTER

While the engines roar at Albert Park and the government celebrates a multi-million-dollar spectacle, Middle Park residents say they are the ones left paying the real price - and they’re pointing the finger squarely at City of Port Phillip.

For four days each year, nearly half a million racegoers descend on the area. Locals say what follows is predictable: footpaths buried under dumped e-scooters and e-bikes, driveways blocked, cars crammed into every available strip of asphalt and nature strip, and basic access rights ignored.

Residents living near circuit entry points report being unable to exit their homes because scooters were stacked across their gates. Streets already narrow at the best of times become choked with parked vehicles, pedestrians and ride-share drop-offs. The risk, they warn, is obvious - if an ambulance or fire truck needed access, precious minutes could be lost.

But what angers locals most is what they describe as a failure of enforcement.

Parking restrictions exist. Local laws exist. Fines exist. Yet residents say enforcement during the Grand Prix is either inconsistent or ineffective. Groups of visitors reportedly factor infringement notices into the cost of the day, splitting fines between carloads and treating penalties as just another event expense.

Meanwhile, manned parking barriers that once controlled access to residential streets were removed in recent years. Since then, enforcement has relied heavily on signage and sporadic patrols - measures residents argue have proven wholly inadequate.

Public urination, vomiting in front gardens, and scooters abandoned across private property have become part of what some describe as the “annual ritual”. Residents say they feel unprotected and unheard.

The Grand Prix may be a showcase for Victoria, but for Middle Park locals the message is simple: if Council cannot enforce its own laws during the biggest event of the year, who exactly is it protecting?

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