Hazelmere data centre impact

Dear Echo News,

I believe genuine engagement needs genuine information.

Your article CDC responds to Hazelmere data centre concerns is accompanied by a rendered image of the proposed facility with the reflection of beautiful, maturing gumtrees glistening in its windows.

One small problem. The trees in this area are about 20m tall, but the CDC facility is over 36m in height, so towering over might be a more realistic way of looking at the relationship.

How can a community assess the impact of such a massive project if the proponent is countenanced to provide such misleading material in an attempt to get stakeholder pre-approval.

Peddling such blatantly deceptive and manipulative misinformation, which seems to be a common practice in development applications, should lead to the immediate suspension of all approvals and a restart of the clock for genuine, fully-informed community engagement and feedback!

Dr R Ilchik

S Guildford

Retail laws change nothing

Dear Echo News,

Congratulations to Mr Catania and the government on the retail barring orders legislation, but this changes nothing of substance.

I worked in retail for years and was involved in more than a few incidents, including an armed robbery.

In none of those situations did I ever feel that another law would have made a difference.

Shops already have the right to refuse service for legitimate reasons such as aggressive, threatening or disruptive behaviour, provided they do not breach anti-discrimination law.

Trespass was already a crime. Threatening and violent behaviour was already a crime.

Adding yet another prohibition that lets retailers seek court orders to ban people does not create additional police officers, free up existing ones, or alter the reality that WA Police is either understaffed or under-utilised.

Successive governments, Labor and Liberal alike, have prioritised revenue-raising through fines because they are easy to count and announce.

Investigating and charging actual violence and theft is harder, produces fewer clean numbers for media releases, and requires a functional court system and a prison system that is not already struggling with overcrowding.

The practical constraint remains the same: there is no reliable capacity to enforce the rules that already existed, let alone any new ones that largely restate them.

Presenting this as fresh protection for shops and staff is another example of prioritising the appearance of action and easy press-conference wins over the harder work of properly resourcing police and shifting focus from easy revenue to the offences that actually affect businesses and the public.

D Marshall

Baldivis

Limit speed on heritage trail

Dear Echo News,

I had to laugh when I read about concerns over e-bikes and motorbikes on the Railway Reserves Heritage (RRH) Trail as reported in e-bike use concerns on Mundaring heritage trail.

I have been walking the trail several days a week for over twenty years.

In that time, I have seen motorbikes perhaps half a dozen times and while I agree they should not be on there at all, it really is a non-event.

The same goes for e-bikes, they are growing in numbers but in the main are ridden by polite, courteous people who let other users know they are coming and slow down when passing.

That brings us to the real problem on the track the so-called gravel bikes, racing bikes with wider tyres traveling at ridiculous speeds without any concern for other track users, riding two and three abreast and refusing to move to the left, screaming at the top of their lungs in the early morning while riding past homes.

It is just a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or killed by one of these cowboys.

Only recently I watched in disbelief as two of them passed a little girl with trainer wheels and her family at full speed, without slowing down at all.

The father called out to them to slow down, their response was to abuse him with foul language.

So, I say to the shire don’t blame the easy targets do something about the real problem. An enforceable speed limit is essential.

G Houghton

Mahogany Creek