The Little Hospital That Could

Here’s some community good news! At the South Perth Hospital annual dinner on Friday night the Chairman, Bob Maher, spoke of their recent achievements. These included the hospital being placed Number 1 in Australia in awards for patient care and satisfaction in surveys run by HBF and Medibank Private. Not bad for a little community hospital.

Bob thanked the entire staff for the quality of care and the patient happiness this produced.

Recognising Bob’s leadership style, which encourages participation by everyone he meets, the board presented Bob with a suitable safety item (above).

The Mayor also recognised Bob’s work and commended the way he’d managed approvals for the new developments under way.

We are so fortunate in South Perth that we have lots of people like this, making a difference in the Community.

Access to Development Plans

Over the past couple of years the South Perth Council has seen some spirited discussions about public access to development plans. While the City has a commitment to open and accountable government, some people have held that a property owner has the right to not allow their plans to be seen by interested parties. Others maintain that members of the community have a right to know what is happening next door and nearby.

There have been some examples where neighbours have successfully pointed out ways that proposed developments do not meet criteria for approval. In other cases it seems to me just plain common sense that people should be informed about what is happening.

As the density of population increases, plenty of research shows that conflict increases even faster. I believe that an informed community will probably have less conflict than one where people have developments sprung on them by surprise.

The present situation is that people can access development plans by making a Freedom of Information application, a process taking both time and money. We have even had a prominent lawyer provide opinion that it might be in breach of copyright- an opinion that I don’t share (but I’m not a lawyer.) Surely if you can get a document under FoI, and our commitment is to open administration then we should make plans easily available

I have seen many other cities where this sort of information is freely available and openly published. This picture shows an advisory panel that I saw recently in Hong Kong. Similar things are common on our east coast.

Please have your say by clicking “Comments” below.

Speed Bumps on Melville Parade?

We have some welcome, new speed bumps on Melville Parade. I note that I can drive in the middle of the road in my mid- size car with barely a bump noticeable.

I think that this probably means that the bumps will have almost no effect on speeding vehicles unless such vehicles are racing side- by- side.

Our City engineers report that Main Roads are convinced the central unbroken separation line (an offence to cross them except to turn right into a street or crossing) and raised pavement markers will prevent this activity. Melville Parade is a 2008/09 project and fully funded by Main Roads (It was delayed as Main Roads finalised the Standards and agreed upon the design.)

Surely the existence of circular black tyre tracks, indicating doughnuts at the intersection, would indicate that demonstrated behaviour is at odds with the expectation that drivers abide by the law. The speed bumps are not there to modify the behaviour of law- abiding drivers, but rather to slow down those who have an alternative set of values. It is probably unlikely that a solid white line in the middle of the road will prevent these drivers from just speeding through the gap between the bumps.

Don’t you just love centralised rules? Comments from you? Click below.