IT’S time the ACT government started cleaning up Canberra’s neighbourhoods, says Nicole Lawder.
The opposition’s City Services spokesperson is planning to move a motion in the ACT Legislative Assembly on Tuesday calling on the government to develop a suburban maintenance strategy to improve the cleanliness of Canberra suburbs.
“For years now, we have been hearing from residents about the slipping standards of suburban maintenance throughout Canberra,” Ms Lawder said.
“Whether it’s overgrown grass, pothole plagued roads or broken play equipment being left unusable for months, Canberrans are rightly tired of their neighbourhoods being neglected.
“Despite repeated community complaints, the Labor-Greens government has failed to adequately prioritise this issue. Basic local services only get minor additional investment when the Labor-Greens Government has no choice but to listen to the barrage of community outrage.
“Take mowing for instance, the Labor-Greens government only acted following enormous community pressure to do so. Yet despite this, they’ve refused to make the rapid mowing response team a permanent initiative, irrespective of Assembly committee reports recommending just that.”
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![Teacher Vanessa Jones has been living in Higgins since 2001, and while she loves the area, she says she is “fed up” with the neglectful ACT government.
The Higgins shops have been completely abandoned, says Vanessa, preventing the opportunity for residents to have a community-centred space to socialise.
They only received bins nine months ago, she says, and requests for a water station and repairs to the bus station have gone unanswered.
“It’s very, very slow,” says Vanessa.
“I asked for the zebra crossing on Fullagar [Crescent] to be repainted, and we had to wait about six or nine months.
“That’s just such a long time… we pay a lot of rates.”
Vanessa says assistance from the government only seems to go to communities with time-rich and assertive communities, leaving places such as Higgins, where the majority of households have both adults working full-time and English may not be the first language of the family, at an automatic disadvantage.
“If you’ve got two people working, paying a mortgage, raising two or three kids, they don’t have the time,” says Vanessa.
Vanessa says the lack of attention quieter places such as Higgins is receiving is starting to look a lot like favouritism.
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