Over to you readers…

Orange City Life doesn’t generally involve itself with local infrastructure issues but a couple of things that happened last week has prompted me to say something.

I live up near the Racecourse and on Tuesday/Wednesday last week I noticed a team of workman put in a pedestrian refuge on Woodward Street near Gardner’s Road. They built the whole thing in about two days. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they would put one there. Before I could fully come to grips with the wisdom of that, the refuge was ripped out again the very next day! I have no idea what caused that but obviously something went terribly wrong and a lot of ratepayers’ money has been wasted.

Hot on the heels of that, I took a call from a concerned reader on Thursday afternoon about another road matter. She lives near Forest Road and was very concerned that there is no decent footpath along Forest Road between the railway footbridge and the hospital. She regularly observes people in mobile scooters or prams trying to negotiate the walk along that section. She was hoping I could help her get some action, she had previously raised it with a local Councillor whose response was “we’re getting to it.”

With these two incidents floating around my head and remembering another friend telling me that it took Council 6 months to respond to a letter he had sent them about another issue, I thought, geez, maybe I should do something.

I did! I drove out with my camera, had a look at what the reader was talking about, discovered her concerns were valid and as a result took some photos to share with other readers.  It is a dog’s breakfast on both sides of the road with sections of concrete paths, dirt tracks, grass, bitumen, bumps and more. It’s hard to believe that such an important road doesn’t have a decent walking path along it, and especially when it leads to the Hospital.

My photos add weight to what I’m saying. These were taken on both sides of Forest Road not far from the shop there, they give an indication to the mix of surfaces users are faced with.

So, that’s OC Life’s contribution, now it’s up to you, the public, to lobby Council if you want to see something done with this section of road.