Perth Voice Interactive

PERTH city council has rejected Subiaco’s proposal for an all-in merger, instead preferring to take just the juiciest parts of its neighbour’s infrastructure assets.

Perth lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi stressed her council’s first preference remained its own submission to slightly expand its borders to take in a small slither of Vincent along with Burswood, UWA, QEII hospital and parts of the surrounding areas.

She said it had only looked at this new option in response to Subiaco’s desire for a full merger.

The new hypothetical boundary goes west to Hensman Road in Subiaco, taking in the commercial strip and Subiaco Oval along with King Edward Memorial, St John of God and Princess Margaret hospitals.

Bits of Cambridge town council around Cambridge Street are also thrown into the mix. Some, but not all the residential areas are left out.

Subiaco mayor Heather Anderson opposes being split.

“It is our strongly held view that the City of Subiaco should remain intact,” she says.

“We are a strong, vibrant community with a long history, and it is the mix of residential and commercial interests that makes Subiaco such an exciting place to be.”

Perth’s alternative scenario contains an odd bump that sees its boundary jump north to gobble up Beatty Park (which Vincent recently spent millions renovating).

Vincent mayor John Carey says the proposal is Perth’s most bald-faced cherrypicking manoeuvre yet.

“It is blatant, it is a farce,” he says.

“They didn’t want Beatty Park [in the previous submission], but now it’s been included because Lords is having problems,” he says, referring to the Subiaco sporting centre recently closed due to asbestos.

He describes the latest plan as an “anyone but Vincent” option, noting Perth is apparently happy to take chunks of Subi’s low-density housing, but not Vincent’s.

In response to the cherrypicking claims Ms Scaffidi says her council focussed on incorporating the infrastructure expected of a capital city.

Mr Carey has accused Perth’s elected members of not wanting to incorporate surrounding residential areas because they’re terrified they won’t win the support of inner-suburban voters at fresh elections.

Officially the deadline to get submissions to the WA local government advisory board is closed, but it’s still accepting late homework.

by DAVID BELL