WOOLWORTHS says a Golden Square car park redesign will keep pedestrians safe and help with an online sales surge.
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The supermarket wants to remove a total of nine spaces from its Thistle Street car park for a new "direct to boot" grocery pick-up area.
It has asked the City of Greater Bendigo's permission to make changes.
The supermarket already offers online grocery orders with dedicated parking elsewhere in the complex, but wants to replace it with a sheltered drive-through area.
The new space would include signage and a painted "wayfinding" path should be installed to keep pedestrians and cars separate, Woolworths' consultants told the council.
"This is particularly important for first time users who may not be aware of the pick up process," they said.
The changes would not affect entrances and exits to other parts of the car park or impact delivery trucks that drop off goods in that part of the Golden Square complex, plans for the pick-up area indicate.
Woolworths' planning consultants said the changes would have an insignificant impact on a car park that would still have close to 200 car parks.
They monitored the car park every hour on Wednesday, September 8, 2021 and found there was still double the supply to meet demand.
In theory, more vehicles could end up using the delivery area once the nine car parks are turned into three.
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That is because right now people can use the spaces for an unrestricted amount of time while shopping.
Woolworths' consultants have conservatively estimated that cars could pull in and out of the new spaces every 15 minutes.
Several existing disability car spaces would need to be moved to other parts of the car park, should the council sign off on Woolworths' plans.
The changes to the Golden Square supermarket would be part of a wider shift across Woolworths stores and the wider sector.
The Woolworths Group saw a 42 per cent surge in online trade in the first year of the pandemic, which it believed was a sign of permanent changes in customer behaviour.
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