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Cars v councils

June 20, 2013 Admin No comments

The news that the Alexandrina Council has joined its neighbors, the Victor Harbor and Yankalilla councils, in opposing the running of the Adelaide Hills Tarmac Rally on locally controlled roads is a blow to car rally organisers.

It now means that the event, scheduled for this weekend, will be concentrated in the Mt Barker and Onkaparinga council regions.

Organisers have already cited a fall-out from restricted routes, with a 20% drop in participant numbers from last year.

While Alexandrina Councillors are doing their job by representing the interests of their ratepayers, the decision does highlight an inconsistency of views on car rallies across the Hills and Fleurieu.

Some councils oppose them and some councils support them – all based on community feedback.

That must be frustrating for event organisers, rally participants and residents, regardless of their views on rallies.

The Adelaide Hills Council continues to wrestle with conflicting community views on car rallies.

It organised a survey last year to gauge community opinion.

The results showed more than 60% support for the events but there were complaints about the wording of the survey and allegations that the response rate was invalid.

Regardless, it would be fair to say the vast majority of people are probably ambivalent about rallies – unless they live on the regularly used roads and are directly affected.

What the Adelaide Hills Council tried to do in response to the issue was to draw up a special events and festivals policy that would deliver a consistent approach to public consultation for all events in a bid to deal with local concerns at a local level.

The jury is still out on whether that has worked in relation to the Targa Adelaide rally coming up in August.

If it does work, then perhaps a similar approach could be rolled out on a wider level, perhaps through the Southern and Hills Local Government Association.

The Courier understands that some rally organisers already have an agreement among themselves not to target the same areas all the time to allay some of the complaints of residents. A similar co-operative approach at a regional level and a consensus on what constitutes “adequate” public consultation would go a long way towards giving certainty to event organisers and reassurance to the community.

If this doesn’t happen, new State Government legislation dealing with major events just might take the issue out of local hands and into State Government hands where disgruntled residents will effectively have no say on road closures.

Pet protection

June 13, 2013 Admin No comments

The images that have emerged from Monday’s raid on the “puppy farm” near Strathalbyn are distressing.
We are a culture that likes to keep pets, with many of us considering them part of the family.
Even man’s worst enemy is incarcerated in better conditions in Australia than man’s best friend was kept at this property.
The RSPCA’s new chief executive in SA, Tim Vasudeva, cuts to the heart of the matter when he points out that this case highlights the lack of scrutiny and the lack of accountability for breeders supplying Australia’s $6billion pet industry.
According to the RSPCA, euthanasia rates for unwanted and dumped dogs and cats and poor breeding practices are two of this country’s most significant animal welfare issues.
RSPCA shelters take in about 120,000 dogs and cats every year, with about a quarter of the dogs and about half the cats having to be put down.
In SA the shelters took in about 8200 animals last year and more than 3000 had to be put down.
This peak animal welfare body lays the blame squarely on the under regulated “commodification” of the dog and cat “companion animal” industry.
Our desire for that cute and cuddly puppy or kitten has led to an oversupply of animals with some unscrupulous breeders resorting to practices that can only be likened to factory farming where female animals are keep in cages and continually pregnant.
Some so called puppy farms are worse than others, as evidenced by this week’s raid, but we all play a part in feeding demand.
If the RSCPA and animal welfare groups have their way, all breeders – even the owners of a single entire animal who have no intention of breeding – should be registered.
Compulsory breeder standards should be developed and compliance monitored and micro chipping of dogs and cats should be compulsory.
Micro chipping might be going too far, given the cost, but it should be noted that Australia’s livestock industry has an identification system that can track an animal’s journey from paddock to plate.
This was brought in to ensure the health and safety of the population.
Why can’t an identification system be brought in to ensure the health and safety of our pets?
If people want to do something to prevent puppy farms, they should avoid impulse purchases of animals and, if a pet is definitely what they want, they should go to a reputable breeder where they can see where the animal was born.
Better yet, adopt a shelter dog or cat which desperately needs a home.

Pageant must stay

June 06, 2013 Admin No comments

For 40 years the Mt Barker Christmas Pageant has drawn thousands of people to line the town’s streets and celebrate the festive season.

Last year 85 floats and over 1000 volunteers took part in the event, which is the largest regional pageant of its kind in the State.

The news of its cancellation is a tragedy for the community.

It’s too popular and too well run to be abandoned solely because alternative storage arrangements for the 15 permanent floats and many costumes cannot be found.

It would be ideal if a new shed could be secured – big enough to store all the equipment and allow regular and convenient maintenance of the floats.

However, even if the proposed Flaxley site was secured, it is a long way from Mt Barker and would create difficulties in transporting the floats into town each year.

Perhaps the hard-working organising committee should rethink how the pageant can continue using a different formula.

It’s too good an event to let the current problem kill it off for good.

There are many other pageants in the Hills which survive quite successfully without a central storage facility.

Stirling, Woodside and Lobethal each run a popular Christmas pageant without a large number of permanent floats.

Those events are mostly made up of community entries – trucks, utes and vans decked out in tinsel and flanked by enthusiastic volunteers.

Many other entries have no vehicles at all and are just children and groups walking to a theme.

The few permanent floats these communities own are stored in various locations across the district.

There are already up to 70 community entrants in the Mt Barker pageant each year on top of the committee’s 15 floats.

A clean, dry and secure storage facility for the costumes would be required and the Mt Barker Council could become a more enthusiastic partner if the burden of delivering a massive shed was removed.

Homes could be found for the floats in various farm sheds around the district and be maintained on a roster, maybe with help from groups such as the men’s shed.

However, even if every float was lost, except for perhaps Santa’s sleigh, it shouldn’t spell the end for the pageant.

The test will be if there is enough community support behind the historic event to keep it afloat in one way or another.

Maybe more people need to step up and lend some time or space to the struggling 12-person pageant committee if they want Father Christmas to continue coming to town.

Heritage woes

May 30, 2013 Admin

Heritage listing for buildings is a touchy subject.
The protections and restrictions associated with such listings can be so unpopular that authorities often do their investigations of buildings in strict secrecy in order to avoid precipitating demolitions or renovations from anxious landowners.
Heritage listings are often viewed as an onerous burden on property owners and businesses rather than a tool that protects something precious for future generations.
But when they are done well they can sustain a character of a place while the modern world marches on.
Mt Torrens has a heritage precinct and the activities of its community association to capitalise on that precinct is a good example of a town that embraces its history.
Hahndorf is another town steeped in early settler history but residents and traders have had an uneasy relationship with heritage protections over the years.
Now Uraidla is stirring over a plan to knock down an old stone “outbuilding” behind the local pub. According to the East Torrens Historical Society, that “outbuilding” is the last blacksmith’s shop left standing in the district and it has enormous significance.
Unfortunately, it is not protected because about 20 years ago local traders objected to a heritage precinct being established in the town that would have encompassed the shop. The Uraidla Hotel is currently closed while the owners, the Fassina Group, plan major renovations.
Those renovations included plans to knock down the old stone building but the company had no idea the structure had any historic significance because nothing was flagged by planning regulations.
Now there is an impasse because the hotel owners want to run a business but the community wants to keep a building it believes is part of the collective character of the area and therefore transcends individual ownership.
The Fassina Group is no stranger to heritage buildings.
The company has gone to great pains to turn the historic Barker Hotel in Mt Barker into a contemporary business that protects the original structure.
Perhaps Uraidla could learn from the people of Mylor who fought to save the old bootmaker’s cottage in their town.
That unlisted building was derelict and was nearly bulldozed by the local council.
However, a group of residents made the cottage a town project and worked together to fundraise and win government grants to restore the structure.
If Uraidla wants to keep its blacksmith’s shop, its residents might have to roll up their sleeves and work with the hotel owners to create something special.

Sculpture trail

May 23, 2013 Admin

Last year’s inaugural Adelaide Hills International Sculpture Symposium was a huge success and was widely embraced by the community.
The region is still reaping its benefits as the resulting sculptures are installed around the Hills.
Sixteen sculptures that will be created at two more events over the next four years will add to the eight existing pieces of art.
The news that $400,000 of funding has been secured to create a tourist trail linking the artworks will add value to the already popular sculptures.
The money will fund the infrastructure needed to create the trail that will weave throughout the Hills and down into the Fleurieu Peninsula.
However, funds still need to be raised to commission the additional sculptures.
The trail will be another tool to help make the Hills and Fleurieu districts a destination for visitors, encouraging them to spend a day touring the regions and hopefully enticing them to explore outside the standard tourist attractions.
It will also help link the separate communities and potentially increase the economic benefit to the district.
While public art is not always going to please everyone, the existing sculptures have generally received endorsements from most in the Hills.
Hopefully the community continues to rally around this exciting endeavor so generations to come can reap the rewards.

Asbestos exposure

The exposure to asbestos experienced by some staff and students at the Littlehampton Primary School in 2009 has been handled with professionalism by those in authority.
The one-off exposure has been assessed to be of “low” risk and appropriate measures were taken as soon as the matter came to the attention of staff.
The wellbeing of the students and their parents appears to be at the forefront of the school’s focus and the State Government Minister has sought assurances that such errors cannot happen again.
It would appear little more can be done.
There does not appear to be hysterics coming from those affected – rather a calm acceptance of the situation and, as next week’s information session will no doubt show, a desire to become informed rather than enraged.
For that the school community is to be congratulated.
Linking a one-off, low risk exposure to asbestos with something like mesothelioma is akin to fearing lung cancer from smoking a single cigarette.

Fire response

May 16, 2013 Admin

In a world where it seems everyone wants to find someone or something to blame when life takes a turn for the worse, it is refreshing to see the resilience and the maturity of the community affected by last week’s Cherryville bushfire.
They have rallied around the Billing family who lost their home on Blockers Road and many have rallied around the landowner who lit the burn-off that led to the fire.
Some properties were caught short by the blaze but CFS Chief Officer Greg Nettleton was quick to praise the majority who had “heeded the message” and had prepared for a bushfire.
Even Adelaide Hills Mayor Bill Spragg, who attended a residents’ meeting at Basket Range on Monday night, commented on the community’s common sense approach to the disaster and their acceptance of the bushfire risk they faced.
Perhaps the response would have been different if more homes had been lost or if people had died.
The feedback so far from locals is that they realise how fortunate they were to have the fire in May – not February.
The photographs taken of the fire by the CFS Promotions Unit show a night-time inferno.
However, compared with the Black Sunday fires that swept through the same area in the summer of 1955, this was a “low energy burn” that was safe enough to allow firefighters to move along summer fire tracks and congregate at individual properties to save homes. It is extremely unlikely that would have happened at the height of summer with a howling north wind.
Some sections of the media have been critical about the lack of immediate response from water bomber aircraft on the Thursday afternoon when the burn-off escaped.
In an ideal world SA would have its own fleet of firefighting aircraft available at a moment’s notice 52 weeks of the year in every high risk area.
We don’t because we cannot afford it and at some times of the year it’s not necessary.
Deciding when it is not necessary is a task we give to the professionals.
However, their decisions will never negate the ever-present risk of bushfire in the Hills and the responsibility we all have to prepare for fire.
If it had been the height of summer, Cherryville might have had a water bomber over the initial fire in five minutes and perhaps it wouldn’t have galloped away.
But then the fire might have flared at night or the winds might have been too strong or the smoke too thick to allow the bombers to fly. The planes are a tool only and at the end of the day and, as the Cherryville fire proved, it is the preparation work of the landholders and the bravery of the firefighters on ground that make the biggest difference.

Alfresco dining

May 09, 2013 Admin

There’s something about eating outside that adds to the dining experience.
For some it’s the chance to indulge in the increasingly marginalised habit of smoking but for most people dining alfresco is a chance to enjoy some sunshine and fresh air, and perhaps even the view.
Restaurants and cafés also love alfresco dining.
It adds to the charm and profitability of their business and increases to the vibrancy of a retail strip.
But getting the design right can be tricky when the dining area in question is on a public footpath.
Different councils have different policies but in the main authorities have to take into account issues of convenience, safety and public access.
There are examples across the Hills where alfresco areas work well and there are examples where they do not.
Some places make pedestrians feel like they are walking into a front bar or cause them to question whether they are allowed to walk through at all.
The alfresco area being upgraded at The Locavore at Stirling does neither of those things but it has prompted a complaint from the Stirling District Residents Association.
The restaurant believes it is creating a level, safer and more sheltered area for diners and staff – that still gives open access to pedestrians.
The association is concerned that the “permanency” of the low walls, the steel frame and roof set a precedent that will destroy the green and leafy appearance of the streetscape as other businesses follow suit.
The Adelaide Hills Council says the design meets its plan for Stirling’s main street and all future alfresco designs will be considered on a case by case basis.
The question is, who arbitrates on something as variable as matters of taste when it comes to appearances?

Mushroom danger

The call from health authorities alerting people to the risks of gathering and eating wild mushrooms seems to be a warning delivered each autumn.
And with good reason. Two people in Canberra were killed last year after eating mushrooms they thought were harmless.
Some landholders have enjoyed eating wild mushrooms for generations without any problems.
But the dangers of gathering the fungi to the uninitiated are too great.
Much better to go for a bracing walk in the autumn chill of the Hills … and buy some on the way home. They’re not that expensive.

Lest we forget

April 26, 2013 Admin

Before dawn tomorrow hundreds of people across the Hills will brave the cold and make the pilgrimage to their local war memorial.
Ninety-nine years after the start of one of the world’s bloodiest wars we will pause to remember those young men who fought and died at Gallipoli, marking the first major military action fought by Australian and NZ troops in WW1.
It is heartening to see the resurgence in numbers at these services.
Many feature school students, who read poems or extracts of letters and diaries from the front, and army cadets who form a catafalque party and stand sentinel at the memorial.
But in our rush to recognise the heroic deeds, mateship and camaraderie of war, we must not risk glorifying some of the most horrific times in our nation’s history.
Perhaps this Anzac Day as we stand in silence we should remember the sacrifices – not just the young lives lost, but also those who returned home irreparably damaged by injury or the shock and horror of what they lived through.
We should remember what the boys and men on the frontline really endured – the terror of scrambling out of trenches to fight the enemy, the cries of agony from the wounded, the sight of watching a mate cut down in front of them.
We should remember the families left behind in Australia for months or even years on end, not knowing whether their husbands, sons, fathers or brothers would return.
We should remember the economic hardship, the food rationing, the countless deaths to diseases such as the Spanish Flu that followed when the troops returned home.
These are some of the true costs of war.
Lest we forget.

Big challenge

The frustration expressed by the Mt Barker Council and the community at a lack of action on developing the proposed Big W site in the town centre is understandable.
It has been years since the land was cleared and sold to Woolworths, and then last year the company withdrew its plan for a major shopping complex after criticism from the council’s planners.
As the last major undeveloped site in the town centre, there is an eagerness from the community to see something happen there.
But it is also important that the town gets the quality of development its residents deserve.
While that may take time, it should be worth the wait.

Valid concerns

April 18, 2013 Admin

A drive down Dumas Street in Mt Barker at morning school drop off time will highlight exactly why the Mt Barker Primary School community is concerned about plans to add a new park n ride to the busy thoroughfare.
The much-needed park n ride, announced by the State Government last week, would certainly be welcome news to commuters who regularly have to battle for a parking space at the existing Dutton Road facility.
The planned new hub, with its 400 plus parking spaces, shelter, secure bike lockers and toilets, is exactly what this growing town needs, and the vacant land next to the TAFE complex seems like an ideal location for it.
But the school community raises some very valid concerns.
The school zone along Dumas Street near the TAFE and library would have to be one of the longest in the Hills.
Each morning and afternoon it is packed with cars, parents and children from both the school and the neighboring kindergarten.
Parking has always been a problem at peak times, as has the amount of traffic congestion, with motorists often banked back from the Adelaide Road lights to well past the school crossing.
Add up to another 1000 vehicle movements a day, especially in the mornings, and it appears to be a recipe for a traffic nightmare.
More work needs to be done to ensure that if the park n ride is built there later this year that it does not jeopardise student safety, or worsen the existing traffic bottleneck.

Rally relations

The Major Events Bill 2013 is a wide- ranging document that aims to make it easier to run big festivals and competitions in SA by placing them under the exclusive control of the State Government.
Car rallies are only one type of event that might be affected by the legislation, which is yet to be debated in Parliament.
However, these rallies are probably the one major event that causes the Adelaide Hills Council the most angst because they involve approving the closure of local roads.
Rally organisers argue that the silent majority of Hills residents support the sport and tolerate the road closures and it is the minority who complain.
Regardless, the complainers have been loud in recent years, prompting the council to draft its own policy for special events.
Elected members are now concerned that their efforts to mediate a middle ground might be for naught.
The Bill might make take the decision out of their hands but it would also take away their ability to speak up for residents.
If that happens, then event organisers and the Government risk eroding valuable community goodwill.

System is sick

April 11, 2013 Admin

A year ago Anthony and Sally Fox were your average Hills couple with two young children.

Life was full of home and work and school and sport.

They had no idea how the State’s health system ran and figured that if they lived a healthy life, paid their taxes and took out private health cover then they would able to take care of themselves.

That ideal was shattered on September 21 last year when Anthony suffered a major stroke. He nearly died and the family was warned at one stage that if he ever woke up, the chances were slim that he would know them.

He did wake up, he did recognise his family and while he has many physical and mental hurdles to overcome, the progress he has made to date is a testament to the skill of the medical professionals who worked on him and his own determination to improve.

It is that fighting spirit that has also sustained him through his latest battle – to go home.

Anthony was told earlier this year that he would be ready to be discharged from the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit at the Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre and into the care programs run through Disabilities SA by late February.

That date was extended to March and then, after a third knock back before Easter, the family was facing a month’s wait for another request to be heard.

Depressed and desperate to be home, Anthony wrote down his story and sent it out to media outlets and politicians.

He couldn’t understand why the State Government was quite happy to pay up to $1000 a day to keep him at Hampstead but couldn’t find the money from a different department to send him home with just 16 hours of support a week.

If the taxpayer was footing the bill, why did it matter which department was paying, he argued.

The public agreed with him and the Minister for Disabilities Services, Tony Piccolo, had to agree as well, promising to review the case.

Anthony is now going home and his bed will be opened up for someone else in desperate need of rehabilitation.

However, Anthony is only one of many who are struggling to get care funding from a cash-strapped department for disability services.

This State has a health department with a ballooning budget that cannot seem to meet any savings targets and yet we continue to have a system that keeps people in high cost care because low cost care is inadequately funded.

The taxpayer has a right to question why its money is not being used in the most efficient and effective manner.