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Canberra Today 17°/20° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Exposed: Footpath incompetence for all to see

Here’s a story that’s taken two years to write and it’s still not over. It’s “Seven Days” with IAN MEIKLE.

IN a moment of whimsy, more than two years ago I started taking pictures of a concrete communications pillar with wires coming out of it in the middle of the footpath on Lysaght Street, Mitchell. 

Ian Meikle.

I have this issue about the public liability of instrumentalities plonking equipment permanently on public pavements with the potential of tripping unwitting or disabled pedestrians.

Despite having looked at this dangerously placed bollard-shaped pillar on the footpath for years, I started taking photos of it on January 30, 2020, when its base was broken and its top-heavy body taped within some supporting, yellow, gated frame with Telstra signage. 

It didn’t look very flash and one wondered why City Services (who are clearly too busy driving around doling out parking fines to notice) hadn’t given Telstra a nudge to move it.

By March 30, 2020, nothing much had changed. Unfixed, it sat tethered to the gate, still defiantly blocking part of the pavement. 

And so it slumbered on, untroubled by attention, when I next photographed it on December 4, 2020

By October 7, 2021, the tape tying it to the gate had been replaced with some rope and the tarmac at its foot had been resurfaced, but its base remained unrepaired.

The following month, because now I’m getting obsessed by it, the November 25 picture shows the tarmacking had reached runway proportions and now some metal plates had been added, which were sinking into the collapsing tarmac. But still the unloved bollard lay slumped against the gate, its wires exposed. 

By February 22 it was lying horizontal on the pavement alongside an equally flattened safety gate. The public liability bells were ringing louder now.

And, at the time of writing, there it lays still, an abomination and a shameful example of the arrogant indifference of whoever owns it (is it Telstra or NBN Co?). Is it dangerous? I don’t know, but it has exposed wires that run into the ground and it shouldn’t be there. 

I will keep taking photos and I will keep drawing attention to the public liability of having this thing laying around a footpath in the hope it gets removed voluntarily or faces the legislative might of (hello?) City Services. 

New team… Tracey Avery, left, and Kate Meikle.

ON a happier note, there’s some “CityNews” news to report. We’re a classic, small, family business. Three years ago, my daughter Kate Meikle (she as a director) and her husband James Anderson (as managing director) joined me in the business. 

Since then we have worked hard (with the help of brilliant staff members and loyal advertising clients) to get “CityNews” back on its feet after covid, all the while never missing a single edition, however dire the economic circumstances. 

With the mission largely accomplished, James has been tempted back to restart his career in the finance industry. He remains a director of the company. 

As a result, and with no little pride, I’m pleased to report that the board has appointed Kate to the big seat in his stead. She holds a degree in communications from Uni NSW and has held senior marketing and communications roles in Sydney. 

She becomes the company’s first female MD and is joined in the leadership group by Tracey Avery as sales director. Tracey is one of the most experienced advertising professionals I’ve ever worked with and, given our only revenue is advertising revenue, this strong female team is inordinately well qualified to extoll the values and virtues of the large, articulate and educated audience that is drawn to “CityNews” and its online sister, citynews.com.au. 

Ian Meikle is the editor of “CityNews” and can be heard on the “CityNews Sunday Roast” news and interview program, 2CC, 9am-noon. There are more of his columns on citynews.com.au

 

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Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Ian Meikle

Ian Meikle

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