Perth Voice Interactive

PLANS for an Inglewood community garden are in limbo after council mergers shifted the suburb from Stirling into Bayswater.

Community group Inglewood on Beaufort had submitted an application with Stirling city council for a $20,000 grant to set up a community garden.

But as of July, Inglewood will become part of an enlarged Bayswater under Barnett government amalgamations.

IOB garden organiser Damien Giudici says Stirling staff don’t know whether the council will be interested in funding a garden that won’t be in its borders in a few months.

“We held some great talks with Stirling and identified two sites: one is on First Avenue at the old Beaufort Street works yard, and the other is beside the Inglewood Soccer Club,” he says. “We also had a community meeting a couple of weeks ago where people came down and contributed their ideas.

“Now things are up in the air with the mergers, we’ll need to wait and see if it impacts our grant.”

Mr Giudici adds any potential site needs to be at least 800sqm.

The Voice asked the council if mergers are jeopardising the application, but we received a bureaucratic side-step.

“The grant round has now closed and the application will be assessed against the grant approval criteria,” economic development manager Paul White said.

“Once the application has been assessed, a report will be submitted to council for a decision, which could be expected in early 2015.”

IOB has been impressed by the success of the North Perth community garden, opened last year, which has a waiting list for people wanting to lease a plot.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK