THE choice of location for a February protest hosted by conservation groups may have seemed like an oddly remote one. Members of the Jarrahdale Forest Protectors and WA Forest Alliance, along with community members and their families, met at a quiet stand of trees in the forest near Serpentine Dam, an hour’s drive from Perth’s…

ARANMORE Catholic Primary School fears kids will be left with a dire shortage of playspace if Vincent council sells off a playground neighbouring the Leederville school. ACPS principal Jonnine Lamborne told this week’s council meeting “the school would be losing a well-utilised area that means a lot to our community”.  She said the playground is…

AFTER three years working in the wings, women have a workshop to call their own in Stirling.  In 2019 Stirling councillor Elizabeth Re moved that the council set up a workshop space for women similar to the council’s successful Men’s Shed. In 2020 a pilot program offering female classes in skills like car maintenance, basic…

A BOLD plan to turn roads into parks is being touted as the solution to Vincent council’s lack of public open space. The inner city council has a chronic lack of parkland and passive spaces, especially in packed suburbs like parts of Highgate and Mount Hawthorn where it can be more than a 400m walk…

A DEMENTIA-THEMED park is one potential option for the Brentham Street land, if interested buyer Rosewood Aged Care purchases the block.  Rosewood CEO Mario Zulberti told last week’s council briefing they’re keen to buy the land for an Australia-first “dementia theme park”, set up as a park where residents could enjoy gardens and activities. He…

DISCONTENT over the Perth Festival taking fossil fuel funding is growing this year, with activists gathering outside events mirroring long-running protests at previous Fringe Festivals.  Artists and activists from Extinction Rebellion WA and Drummers for Climate Action put on their own performance outside Perth Concert Hall on March 5 ahead of the Perth Festival’s Become Ocean…

TWO eye-pleasing patches of Mount Hawthorn may soon have their aesthetic preserved as “character areas”, with a workshop to discuss the details coming up on March 9. Kalgoorlie Street’s block of homes between Ashby and Berryman Streets – along with all of Wilberforce Street’s residences – would be covered by the character areas if residents…

SENIORS living in Mertome Village are feeling “very hurt, unwanted, and disrespected” over a massive $250,000 rates bill they believe they were never supposed to pay.  Bayswater council built Mertome on Winifred Road in 1972 and it was likely the first council-provided aged care service in WA.  For most of its lifespan the village was…

FORMER Bayswater mayor Dan Bull says the council is trashing its “Garden City” motto by allowing too many healthy verge trees to be cut down.  Bayswater used to make it near impossible for residents to remove a tree from the council-controlled verges; sometimes even getting a thorough pruning was tricky.  At the October 2021 council…

PERTH council house was lit up with the depiction of a sunflower this week in support of Ukraine as the former Soviet state faces Russian invasion.  The sunflower is Ukraine’s national flower and it became a prominent symbol of peace in 1996: When Ukraine completed nuclear disarmament, sunflowers were planted in fields atop dismantled nuclear…