Arkarra, Council Meeting and Guinea Fowl travels

March 1st, 2010

It was great to see the Chronicle writing about Arkarra Tea Gardens on Friday and Saturday as I still fear for the future of our little local icon. But the story on Friday is a great example of how journalism these days seems to believe that facts shouldn’t get in the way of a good story. The story began with the assertion that I was on record as voting against development applications in relation to the former owners of the Tea Gardens. This statement wasn’t even remotley true it was just wrong. I did enquire directly of the editor as to where they obtained their information from but I was advised that this was confidential (of course) but possibly I had debated against an application? This was grasping at straws in the extrmeme but just proves to me yet again not to believe much if anything that I read in the media these days.

So yes Graham and I would purchase the Tea Gardens and did in fact attempt to buy them, but the price went up after we had been told our offer was accepted by close to a hundred thousand dollars, and no matter which way we look at it we can’t see a return on the necessary investment. The land is potentially subdivideable which terrifies me as I believe it would be a great shame to lose the lovely local business. The existing conditions relating to the use were the result of a development application to extend the business and not, in my opinion, why the business failed.

Council meets this week to discuss sport and recreation issues and opening hours for the waste sites at Granville, Tinana, Yengarie and Bauple. A hard one as the survey shows across the board support for all hours so I am still undecided as to how best we provide a good service that will suit the majority of users. We discuss our Complaints process and review complaints received and check out how we are travelling financially. In confidential we will have the opportunity to see information from our airports land use review. A hot topic for sure. The agenda is available now via the Council web site.

Our Guinea Fowl went walk about last week escaping to the greener (well browner really) forest at the rear of our property. After a couple of days with no sign of them we discovered them wandering around at the end of our street. They didn’t want to follow me home but wandered in on Friday evening so life is back to normal. They are being noisier than they should be so I have threatened to leave the gate open and let them fend for themselves!

Take care, Sue

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