Double crossed

Dear Echo News,

I have just found out (from chatting to what appeared to me as Metronet project officers) that when the Helena Street railway crossing is closed in early 2024 there will be no pedestrian crossing for anyone who lives on the other side of the rail line.

So, anyone using public transport – either bus or train – that lives or works over the other side of the station will either have to walk up to the new crossing at Cale Street and backtrack or go back to the Morrison Road crossing to get home or to work.

It looks like we who do live on the wrong side of the tracks are going to be majorly inconvenienced until the new Midland station opens sometime in 2025.

It would be nice to have the pedestrian crossing still available until the new station is opened.

L Stinton

Woodbridge

Vines-sores

Dear Echo News,

As a resident of The Vines for nearly 17 years, my wife and I both enjoy the tranquillity and quiet life we lead in this area which no doubt many of your readers living here would agree with.

We walk a considerable amount around our area where we live backing onto The Vines Country Club and golf course.

That said we have noticed over time an increasing amount of newly erected steel sheds for whatever purpose the resident requires them.

Recent activity on a property along Vines Avenue have raised serious concerns as to what the shire planning division at the City of Swan is doing, and more so how they arrived at the decision to pass for erection a massive unsightly structure more suited to light industrial area like Wangara, which is an outright eyesore and not designated for a residential area.

I contacted the City of Swan in November raising concerns and objections and I’m still awaiting a proper response.

P.S. I note the neighbouring property is now up for sale – I wonder why?

C Pickrell

The Vines

Heritage going

Dear Echo News,

A poem for readers:

Absent minded walk to work, chill morning sun sparkling

I’m not expecting anything, see an excavator in the carpark revving

By where the supermarket once stood, in front of little old tin cottage last in the street, hang on!

Now its asbestos front is torn, demolition man says to me

What do you want old girl, what do you think old man?

I want to see, pristine 130 year old pine liner boards, coloured lead lights over the front door

Six inch floor boards, as they were on the day

Kevin Mountain inherited it from his dad, his footy posters of the Swans still on the walls

Handpainted floral bouquets

The excavator is coming for him now, I feel its rumble through the earth

Feel sad, precious relics so easily destroyed

Old people forgotten, they cut the timber nailed in the walls polished the floors

Loved its character, it was all they could afford

They weren’t perfect either as they walked to work, from the railway cottage to the workshops

By now we should know better, with the little cottage gone who are we?

Past references our walk into the future

Where we are where we’ve been

Now on the back of the truck being taken to the tip

Cr J Catalano

City of Swan