I just wanted to write to vent my disapointment with the council, the poor service I have been dealt and also the lack of courtesy from a particular councillor that had promised to look into a problem I am having and, despite my writing to him over the last seven or nine weeks, I have been blatently ignored. Seriously Cr, a simple note to say “I am making enquiries on your behalf” would have been great.
The problem I have is that for the last (about) 15 years, I have been making requests in writing to Council every three or four years with regards to getting some curb and guttering work in the street that I live in, to help with the problems we had here in previous years with errosion and huge washouts occuring between the road surface and the footpath. Every time I have written, I have recieved the standard answer that it is not within council’s budget for this financial year.
I have to admit that the last time I complained about this, there was some work done here to scarf out and remove an amount of earth and some hotmix placed in the entry to my property to try to overcome the problem of the washouts, but that created its own problems, which have come to my attention since selling my utility and purchasing a Falcon sedan and a box trailer.
Now it seems that I cannot access the property with my trailer without it scraping heavily on the road surface, due to the sharp drop from the roadway and very rapid rise to the footpath and driveway to enter my property. I should also mention that this happens with the trailer EMPTY and to date I have avoided trying to attempt the manoeuvre with anything loaded in the trailer.
Now, after talking to a young lady from council who first appeared to be helpful and sympathetic to my needs, it seemed that reliability was lacking, as she did not meet me at the times she arranged and failed to call as a courtesy to say that she could not make the meeting. After many phone calls to attempt to contact her, she finally returned my call and delivered the news I was waiting for… It is not within council’s budget but you can write a letter, so it would appear that I am back to square 1… which, in case you need reminding, was 15 years ago at a time when my yearly rates were less than $800 (my last rates notice was over $2500 for less than a 15m frontage).
Now, I know I am not the only issue on council’s agenda and I know that the people in the offices have more to worry about than hurting the feelings of a ratepayer who does not have reasonable access to his property with a box trailer attached to his car, but seriously… all I want to know is if this work will ever get allocated during a budgeted year or will my letters and enquiries be returned with the standard responses from now till eternity?
Neil Briscoe
