WHAT WE SAW AND WHAT WAS PLANNED WAS NOT WHAT WE GOT
It’s a bit of a mixed bag with the new Town Tourist Precinct. Actually we like the fact that people are already stopping and enjoying the facility and, at least on the day that I was down there, stopping about three or four families and preventing them from having a picnic somewhere else.
It is still to be seen if Kris and Mal benefit from the new facility or whether the highway traffic, still doing 80 kph by the time they ‘hit’ the area, will be slowed enough for pedestrians to cross safely with their Chico Rolls and it will be some time before we notice any increase, if any, in the main shopping precinct atop the hill. Rarely do people stop twice in the same town unless they’re fat lazy buggers.
We got half of the original design. As Golden Pains Council had decided that it would come in on time and on budget and they didn’t have to pay for the States largesse. The project kept getting smaller with each new tender, and from what I hear, it had to be re-tendered several times due to errors. One error being a declaration that there was definitely no water on site but it was later miraculously divined and the replica rooms became much needed toilets. They did not read the Dial Before You Dig publicity.
The horse troughs went, seats went, signs were reduced, the platform reduced in length, a picnic rotunda wiped off the map and imaginative crossing barriers, which could have been a great safety feature migrated up the hill under a set of bushes and only a token of their original size.
Only time now will tell whether the State of Victoria has used its money wisely, or as usual, pissed it all up against the wall inside the toilets. For a newsletter that is famous for its whinging, whining and self aggrandisement I think we should shut our mouth for a while until the town, the tourists and the intoxicated pass their judgement.
TENECE ANYWON
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