Let’s do the time warp again
On the evening of 1 June about 80 (rough guess) people attended a “Community Consultation Forum” conducted by consultants SEMF.
The invitation to the meeting sounded promising. It said in part:
Kingborough Council, the Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources (DIER) and Department of Economic Development have agreed to develop a precinct plan for Little Oyster Cove – Ferry Road and the Kettering Ferry Terminal . . .
The precinct plan will provide the community and key stakeholders with a guide as to how the area will be developed and serviced in the coming years, to meet the growing needs of the ferry service, the needs of commercial development within the precinct, residential activities and tourism facilities . . .
The forum is an opportunity for input into the precinct plan and provide ideas and views on the future development of the precinct area . . .
The reality was extremely disappointing. Lead consultant Geoff Davies announced that the meeting was to focus solely on “sewerage” and “Ferry Road” and then called for ideas on how these things could be “fixed”. A highly unstructured gabfest then ensued resulting in numerous dot-points being jotted down on butcher’s paper. Most of the points have been expressed ad-infinitum at previous meetings over the past 10 years.
It is difficult to see how this “Forum” advanced the cause. Are Kingborough Council and the Tasmanian Government still so much in the dark about the problems of Ferry Road and the community’s expectations that they need to repeatedly engage consultants to study the problems? Or is this whole “Precinct Plan” notion just another delaying tactic?
The most disturbing fact to arise from the meeting was that the consultants do not see it as within their brief to produce a “Precinct Plan”. If they aren’t doing it who is? When will it be done? More importantly when will funds be committed to achieve some real progress?
Did you attend the meeting? What was your impression?
2 Responses to “Let’s do the time warp again”
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Ian Spence on June 2nd, 2009
Good morning Graham
I am the bloke who explained wind direction near the close of last nights meeting. I agree that the meeting was of questionable value and certainly was not what I expected.
I believe that all residents want the Ferry queuing problem to be fixed however I have yet to hear of “the perfect fix”. A new lane on Ferry Road would certainly help the residents however it would not have any effect on the queue problem in peak times, it could even increase the problem as all the waterfront business would ask for “keep this space clear” signes in front of their entrances thus reducing the number of car spots before overflowing into the Highway. The extra parking that would be available “if” the light house site could be converted would certainly help but a quick study indicates that this would not guarantee that there would no on the road queuing. Hence you would require a new lane and the enlarged queuing area. This appears to be a big ask. The not ferry parking is also increasing and must be accommodated in the grand scheme of things.
The guy last night stated that “no Ferry Road fix without a sewerage fix”. Before moving south I lived in a non-sewered area of Sydney. Our block size was 600 sqm and we had a basic tank and sullage trench system in very bad soil for absorption. I was also a waterfront property. There were 1200 similar properties in the general location. All worked fine with an annual inspection by council for waterfront and at 2 or 3 year intervals for less sensitive areas. We nursed our tanks and the inspector was our best friend at inspection time, as the penalty was a “ new style “ system at about $30.000. One section of the area of about 170 houses wanted a group solution and costed it out. It would on average cost each household about $50,000 about 10 years ago. The idea was not followed through.
The concern that many of Kettering residents have, is that we associate a sewerage system for Ferry Road with the following which from our view point are not desirable outcomes
It will enable large scale development on both the water front and on the hill side. Nothing last night changed this. A number of residents openly said that this was their wish and this study appears to have nothing to do with this issue.
Where will the treatment plant go. It is assumed to be near the oval, which appears to be an “out of site out of mind solution” for many ferry road residents. It may be for them but it is certainly not for many others. It is the areas playground. If the baby system for the ferry toilets was one 20foot container how big would one be to handle 50 times the volume of sullage. It would be very large. The land is not flat and would require a cut and fill exercise. It would also require a roadway from the highway or the possible new road to the marina.
What to do with the end product. It cannot be dumped into the head of the bay. It could water the cricket oval but it would soon be a swimming pool.
What if the sewerage authorities wish to sewer the Channel and Kettering turns into a major sewerage disposal town.
All of these are of concern to a large number of residents and we hope you will consider Kettering rather as a village rather than your to date “Kettering is Ferry road and Ferry road is Kettering” attitude.
Ian Spence
11 Saddle road
62674939
Picton Hay on June 2nd, 2009
In any civilised State there is government and local authorities whose prime purpose is to provide and admimister amemities and and services for their people.
After 15-20yrs of consultations and interviews, the production of wonderful plans , promises by Premiers ( see elseware on this site) and on Monday night after being subjected to the same old song how does our government and local council measure up?
The question to be asked is ” do we have civilised government ? or perhaps is there anyone in the government of rational mind ??
Maybe we are in a timewarp or just dreaming this is going on.
Only one thing is absolutely certain. At the rate government is acting few of us will ever live to see any improvement in Kettering. The next generation maybe. It will take at least a century to sewer the whole of Kettering and only an invasion by China will cause the whole Channel to be sewered,