Perth Voice Interactive

EIGHTH AVENUE in Maylands is set to become greener and more pedestrian friendly.

The local business association is finishing off a study on how other suburbs have spruced up their town centres, and chair Luke Dimasi says that priority items are “making it pedestrian friendly: greenery is at the top of the list, parklets and places where people can sit and enjoy themselves”.

“We’re doing a bit of a survey of other regions like Claremont and Cottesloe, to see when they did a bit of revitalisation and how it went”.

Lonely Planet named Maylands as one of Australia’s three coolest neighbourhoods, but it still has a few snags with low foot traffic during the day, a bit of antisocial behaviour and a lack of greenery.

As part of the Eighth Avenue revitalisation plan, Maylands MP Lisa Baker’s secured a $10,000 grant through the ‘Local projects, local jobs’ program to pay for a streetscape consultant.

“We want to bring more people and vibrancy to the strip and keep developing the fabulous food and shopping precinct,” she says.

“The plan will be aligned to what we found in the Maylands crime prevention through environmental design report—finding creative ways to ‘design out crime’ and also keeping our title as one of Australia’s coolest suburbs.”

Mr Dimasi says they’re wrapping up the study and will have a committee meeting in the next few months to devise a plan.

by DAVID BELL