Level Crossing workshop - more talk?

Recently Vicroads has been widely letter dropping in all the affected areas details of a forum/workshop they are conducting at Carnegie Library on Tues 6th September 630-830pm on level crossings on the Dandenong line.

All local residents in the area know this is the biggest issue in the area right thru from Caulfield to Oakleigh and Im not sure of the value of further 'workshops' -
Everyone knows what the problem is and what the solution is.

There needs to be a solid committment by the State Govt to fund this grade separation as soon as possible - Presently for the M/Beena rd crossing re previous posting there is $2.5m allocated to plan/study in this term and a further $150m if re-elected in 2014.Will be interested to see the outcomes of these workshops,

Community Environment forum Wed 31st Aug

The 2011 Glen Eira Community Environment Forum will be held on Wednesday 31st August 730pm in the Caulfield Cup room at the town hall - cnr of Hawthorn and Glen Eira rds. - all welcome!

This is an important annual forum that will provide many of the priorities and actions for next years Environment Sustainability Strategy (ESS). It is also important to hear feedback on how the current ESS is performing and what changes are required to produce more effective results.

Recently Council has dealt with issues around public open spece, tree protection, including better environmental design in planning applications and sustainable transport and these and others are sure to be dicussed on the night.

The draft Carbon Reduction plan is currently out for public scrutiny until Sept 6th and this forum will provide further opportunity for comment.

The current ESS is listed in links bottom right.

draft Carbon Reduction plan released

At last Tuesday's meeting Glen Eira's first draft Carbon Reduction plan was released for a 28 day public submission and comment period.

The plan is Item 9.3 in the minutes bottom right of screen.

In moving this motion and welcoming public comment, I outlined in my view the strengths and weaknneses of the draft plan- On the plus side the street light changeover over the next two years (reducing council's emission by 11-14%) is a major step forward with $2m budgeted over the next two year to change to more energy efficient T5 globes.

Other measures articulated in the action plan include the purchasing of hybrid council vehicles, Greenpower for 25% of councils electricity needs, increasing the uptake of the Eco-Buy purchasing program by 10% each year and utilising best practise low emmission manufactures concrete.

The Sports and Aquatic centre (GESAC) at Bentleigh about to come online presents a challenge in managing emmissions. This 24/7 facility will be powered primarily by convential sources ie brown coal- In the design of this facilty there is capacity to transform to co-generation energy sourcing and I will certainly be advocating for this in future years.

The major flaw with the plan as I see it is a lack of targets and vision about where GEs emissions should and will be in future- despite the actions it would seem to be an ever increasing upward trend!- will look forward to comments.


The annual Evironment Community Forum will be held on Wed 31st August 7pm Caulfield Cup room -

Back on line on Thurs 11th Aug

Will be back on line after a short break with all the news on Thursday 11th Aug,
Cheers Neil