Perth Voice Interactive

OVER 50 ideas on how to spend Vincent council’s budget have been submitted by the community this year.

Ideas ranged from a dog playground to a request to commemorate the 1933 secessionist movement.

It’s the second year Vincent’s let locals put forward ideas in a simple way, and it’s led to 15-fold increase in the number of submissions.

Mayor Emma Cole says “it’s been really successful: we’ve funded a lot of the initiatives from last year and we’ve seen many of those in place now.

Progress

“Some of them are a work in progress, but there was a really fantastic hit rate with our submissions last year, it resulted in some really tangible outcomes and it encourages people to participate.”

Ideas which came to fruition included installing a netball hoop at Menzies Park and upgrading Forrest Park Playground, and there’s plans for new public toilets at Braithwaite Park.

Ms Cole says “people seem to have embraced the priorities that council has put forward, there’s been a lot of [ideas for] open space and pedestrian safety,” two of the big priorities set by council.

“We’ve had requests for fenced dog areas, a dog playground … we have a request for an arts hub, a request to celebrate our Beatty Park and Litis Stadium heritage.”

And it turned out the idea to commemorate the 1933 secessionist attempt was a hook from someone wanting to bring a festival of ideas to Vincent.

The next stage is for admin staff to go over the proposals in detail and make recommendations about which ones they support, then councillors will make the final call come budget time in the mid-year.

by DAVID BELL