Tonight’s Campbelltown Council meeting will hear the case of a St Andrews resident who just refuses to stop trying to have a walkway closed down.
As the report to council makes clear, this is a 20 year saga with no end in sight.
The walkway in question connects two streets in St Andrews: Tarbert Place and Bannockburn Avenue.
There are four adjoining owners.
Only one has been wanting the walkway closed over the past 20 years and it is council policy that walkways are closed if all adjoining owners support it.
In this case two owners object to closing the walkway, while the fourth resident has stayed silent on the matter since it came before council in 1997.
It’s so long ago that the report to tonight’s meeting reveals that “there is no record as to why the closure did not proceed at that time’’.
The only records available are for the four subsequent attempts by “Resident A’’ to have the walkway closed down in 2009, 2012, 2015 and March 2017.
The first three were rejected and the last one looks destined for the same fate at tonight’s council meeting.
When the most recent closure request was received from Resident A, council notified the other three adjoining owners.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“Resident B phoned council asking why they kept receiving letters seeking their advice for a closure they do not support,’’ says the report for tonight’s meeting.[/social_quote]
“Nothing was received in writing from Resident B.
“Resident C also phoned council and forwarded correspondence indicating that they did not want the closure to proceed as they use the walkway, and had not seen any evidence of anti-social behaviour.’’
In an effort to have final closure, as it were, council this time around has gone to extraordinary lengths to provide as much evidence as possible for rejecting the application once again.
This included installing CCTV cameras for two weeks to check claims of anti social behaviour in the vicinity of the walkway.
An assessment of the camera footage revealed that 19 people had used the walkway during the time the cameras were installed, including school children walking to and from school on a regular basis.
However there was no any evidence of antisocial behaviour.
Council also wrote to Macquarie Fields Local Area Command seeking details of any incidences reported to police in the vicinity of the walkway.
The police undertook searches and related enquiries dating back to 2009.
They told council that no incidents specific to the walkway, or the immediate location had been reported during that period.
The report on the walkway saga recommends, not surprisingly, that it stay open.
