LONG time community campaigner and Voice correspondent, the late John Collins, has been memorialised with a public bench in Weld Square.

Mr Collins lived on Edward Street in Perth for 45 years until his death last year. He was active on local issues like re-opening long-empty public housing for homeless people, and pushing out East Perth’s loud and noisy concrete batching plants from that neighbourhood. 

Friends, family members and Edward Street neighbours remembered him at Weld Square on October 30 and dedicated a commemorative plaque to him on a park seat, following a submission to Vincent council by his brother Peter.

Vincent mayor Emma Cole attended and said: “John was a person who knew his neighbourhood, was helpful and friendly to all he met and got involved with issues that affected them.

“The relocation of the concrete batching plants at the Claisebrook end of Edward Street was but one example of John’s commitment to the improvement of his community.

“He also gave assistance to those less fortunate and sometimes gave food to the homeless that he had purchased from the nearby lunch bar,” Ms Cole said.

Peter Collins told us via email: “We were considering ways in which we as a family could establish a long-term memory of John which we could share with his local community.”

by DAVID BELL