Long walk to Midland Station

Dear Echo News,

Having made the nine-minute walk from the car park to Midland station for the first time I wonder how my wife who has recently had a joint replacement and all those like her are going to cope?

There is one disabled bay outside the station but because of the high curb you need a 4WD to access it.

Where are the bays like the old station had for parents to pick up their kids coming home in the dark?

The new bus port is just environmental vandalism.

Gone are our 60 to 100-year-old trees which provided shade on our old walk to the station.

What happened to the 30 per cent tree cover we were supposed to have which can reduce temperatures by 5 degrees in summer?

And still there is no EV charging in an oil crisis.

$417 million and growing?

Let’s hope it’s not too late for our local politicians to get some action.

Dr C Hughes

Midland

Democracy dead in planning

Dear Echo News,

The state government is to be condemned for excluding local elected representation in planning decisions, now largely determined by Development Assessment Panels (DAP).

Even the limited local government contribution has been removed from elected members and placed solely in the hands of the CEO’s delegate.

Not only is the state government obsessed with fast tracking development at any cost, it has in the process scooped up the natural ground of the Liberals and silenced opposition.

And when a concerned community wants to be heard?

Take a day off work, head into town, and be a granted two minutes to express your views, irrespective of the complexity or scale of the proposal.

It’s dismissive, demeaning and disgraceful.

The developer/applicant on the other hand  are not timed or constrained at DAP.

I believe that the CEO’s delegate has no accountability to community - so evident in the recent DAP transport storage approved in Stirling Crescent Hazelmere.

The City of Swan has a policy requiring 10 per cent of the development site to be landscaped, and on the Eric Street frontage, a policy requirement of 6m of landscaped setback as a visual buffer.

But the CEO’s delegate granted concessions to the developer and halved both those requirements.

Longstanding residents of Eric Street, who for forty years have looked over powerlines, pasture and wild geese will now be confronted with hectares of bitumen, hundreds of vehicles glinting in the sun and not a tree in sight.

Giving up more than 2300sq metres of potential landscaping to facilitate another 100 vehicles on site.

Hard to believe a city staffer would be so indifferent to the well-being of residents.

Whose interests are they employed to serve?

And noteworthy, the applicant only required two parking bays for staff so no great offset in local employment opportunities then!

And now this community confronts another planning disaster of a data centre on the banks of the Mandoon Bilya (Helena River) and next to a school.

Big thanks to the Echo News for giving us a voice, because the state government is certainly not.

But be assured we won’t give up.

C Hughes

Woodbridge

Wattle fuel fire concerns

Dear Echo News,

Even in a fuel crisis, most of us would not tolerate an ever-growing row of fuel tanks under powerlines on the road verge outside our house?

Yet many road verges in the Shire of Mundaring have equally volatile/flammable introduced Flinders Range wattles (FRW), and under powerlines, providing an ever-growing vector for an explosive landscape fire.

In Riley Road for example, a tree service coppicing dense stands of FRW’s under power lines in response to my frustrated; “Cut ‘em to the ground and glyphosate ‘em” was “We’re not allowed to do that!”

How dangerous to leave FRW’s, and so wasteful of scarce resources, with houses less than 20m away up a steep slope behind?

Having raised the issue at the past two Shire of Mundaring annual electors’ meetings we are yet to hear if the shire, Western Power and adjoining landowners have begun to work together to reduce FRWs (fuel tanks) on road verges across the shire.

J&R R Greenwood

Stoneville