Perth Voice Interactive

A WOMAN restricted to a wheelchair has twice been bogged in a sandy path, with a builder and her council slow to fix the problem.

Lily, who travels the pavement on Beechboro Road South to get to her local shops, was bogged after sand on the path mixed with rain and her 250kg wheelchair started doing wheel spins.

“My only option [now] is to venture out onto the road and take my chances,” she says.

“Usually there are work vehicles parked in the cycle lane so I have to go right out onto the left-hand lane and dodge the traffic.

“One time when I did it, the builders onsite were laughing at me.

“I can’t cross the road and use the other pavement because it is on a bend beside a hill and the cars fly down at 60kmh.”

Lily says pensioners from the nearby aged care home and mums with prams and strollers also struggle.

She contacted the builders and Bayswater city council last week, after the Water Corporation ripped up the pavement and it was replaced with sand a few weeks ago.

Since then, the builder has replaced the sand with compact limestone, which Lily says is not any better.

“It was only after I told Bayswater council that I had called the Perth Voice that they sprung into action and came down to the site,” she says.

“Before that the man at council didn’t believe it was possible for me to get bogged in the sand and didn’t take me seriously.

“They walked back to my house and agreed there was no safe point for me to cross before the sandy section.”

Mayor Sylvan Albert says the council spoke to the builder after receiving Lily’s complaint: “We have spoken to the builder who has placed compacted limestone in the area as a temporary access path,” he says.

“This is common practice for temporary access as construction works are undertaken. The builder told us he intends to construct the concrete crossover as soon as possible in order to solve the issue.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK