A shout out for civic pride

I would just like to do a little shoutout to Baw Baw Shire for the recent work they have done on Smith Street, Warragul.

Yeah it was a little disruptive but the finished product looks beautiful and the access they have created for people with disabilities is fantastic.

I’ve had lots of friends from Melbourne come to town and remark on how beautiful it is and how well maintained our parks and garden beds are and I agree.

I am very proud of our town and would like to thank the many people who contribute to the upkeep. Erika McInerney, Warragul open space gives a community.

Whoever prepared the document had even dared to propose that our much used parkland be turned into a car park for the railway station which is on the other side of the busiest intersection in town. We, the residents, have shouted and jumped up and down enough that this proposal is no longer an option.

It is not long ago we were also presented with the ‘Rural Land Use’ document where portions of well managed productive dairy farms were labelled vacant lots.

Our house is on a slab laid flush with the ground on a flood plain in a street without underground drainage at our end. Remedial work has included a trench at the back of the house and an automatic pump to pump excess water to the gutter at the front of the house.

The excuse –your street, in one of the older parts of Longwarry, is not on the flood plain – only every street around it. A clerical error?

We had previously lived in the hills, on top of a hill. A bureaucrat on the other end of the phone line once refused to believe that the slope of our block of land was down from the house in all directions.

People sitting at flat, dry and non-arable desks need to get out into the communities and see what the land they are making proposals about really means to the people who live and work and play on it, before they make the proposals.

Rosemary Zurrer, Longwarry eyes which can and does cause blindness.

In the long term it will cost the government more in health care. This state of affairs needs changing now. A Diston. Warragul