Moreland council meeting
With a fantastic turnout at the Moreland City Council meeting we’ve again shown the strength of community support for retention of open-space parkland. Mayor Mark O’Brien brought forward the report on VicRoads which helped since the act of doing so answered a number of questions those in the gallery were poised to ask.
In the act of proposing the Council resolution, Cr Helou amended the form so the letter written to VicRoads advising them of the Council’s wish to be gifted certain parcels of land was changed from ‘Parcels ‘A’ and ‘B’ near Newlands Rd, Coburg‘ to ‘All parcels of land near Newlands Rd, Coburg‘. This is clearly a much better outcome for residents and Council.
Moreland CEO Peter Brown reminded the community that the decision had been deferred “at least until the end of this financial year“. Cr Mathews-Ward commented to the gallery that this process could take a while, citing an example of public land retention which took years. Ideally our campaign won’t take that long!
During question time Christine Campbell MP again requested copies of any documentation about issues which would affect the land value and strengthen the argument for public ownership of the land continue to be sent to her. (Naturally, if you’ve got something to share, we’d love to share it with the world here so send us a copy too!)
We are still some way from the final outcome but some on Council tonight saw the community support for the first time and realised the strength of our campaign and resolve. With promises of more open dialogue in the future we hope to get that final decision much sooner than Cr Mathews-Ward’s example!