Let’s use public facilities to help the needy
Recently I received a political brochure in the letter box from Maree Edwards member for Bendigo West. One of the blurbs was from Jim Norris, Castlemaine stating how Maree had championed the idea of obtaining a lease for the of the soon to be redundant Castlemaine SC Etty Street campus for a multitude of community uses.
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While I have no problems with this I do find it amusing. Neither Maree Edwards (Bendigo West) or Jacinta Allan (Bendigo East) have championed any ideas for vacant public facilities here in Bendigo.
1. The Sandhurst Centre in Finn Street been vacant for quite some time since they removed the residents out into houses.
2. Laurel Street PS again has been vacant for at least 12 months.
3. North Bendigo PS sat vacant for many years through the failed Ron Lake Bendigo Education Plan supported by these two members.
Given the amount of homeless people, families struggling for affordable housing volunteer groups, there are numerous things that they could have or be used for.
Ivan Kitt, Bendigo
Are the right people in ‘out of touch’ Bendigo council?
The Greater City of Bendigo council has just announced a review into how to attract more business to our region and some public meetings with all things being right would provide valuable input.
The real question here is will this simply be another talk fest from a council and in particular an executive that will listen and then just do what they had intended anyway.
There have been countless examples of precisely that, the Hargreaves St Mall, the tram around the lake. the Morong Business Hub, the mosque, the botanical gardens and the list could go on and on.
We have seen successive councils and in particular our current C.E.O. who has done more to push business away than to encourage it to our region. There are a number of examples of this such as a proposed meat works and the Woolworths Distribution Center.
The distribution center has hundreds of employees and the tender process was won by another council. The real issue here is that it was one of our own past employees who worked hard to win that tender while our officers sat on their hands.
Council now are returning the Easter fair back to a four-day event after years of a failed experiment and the loss of millions of dollars to the region and something they were clearly warned against and once again peoples concerns were ignored.
The real issue is do we have the right people to address what is a serious problem for our region and one that is not the case in places such as Ballarat, Shepparton, Echuca and others.
It was just three years ago when council voted on a Rural and Regional Strategy to bring in the development boundaries, a plan for 10 years and now they’re looking for more industrial land. The flawed and ridiculous push to acquire the Carter land at Morong was a clear indication of how out of touch our council and executive have been with the residents.
We seem to have developed a culture of failure that keeps getting rewarded and no one held to account and that needs to stop. Encouraging business to our region and supporting our existing businesses should be one of a council’s top priority.
Stuart Symes, Epsom
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