YET another prominent garden denuded to make way for a subdivision in Bayswater has put the WA Planning Commission under the spotlight over its lack of protection for trees. The latest significant clearing was the front half of 13 Swan View Terrace, which Maylands residents Katy and Murray Riggall describe as an “iconic Maylands garden”…

BAYSWATER waste recycling plant Resource Recovery Solutions has been found guilty of “gross negligence” after a worker’s arm was amputated at the shoulder in 2016.   It’s the first time a company has been found guilty of gross negligence under the Occupational Safety and Health Act’s requirements to provide a safe work place; “the most serious…

Council didn’t alert tree owner  OWNERS of historic properties are starting to pepper Bayswater council to get their places off its heritage list. In February the council added dozens more properties to its heritage list, giving them some statutory protection against demolition. The decision followed a long consultation process but some owners said they never received letters advising them…

HOMELESS Connect Perth will not run in 2020.  The big one-day annual event usually runs in November at Russell Square, connecting homeless people with a variety of support organisations and offering services like dental work and haircuts.  Volunteering WA organises the event but says along with major partner, Perth city council, it had decided not to…

PICABAR’S just hibernating and will return.  As other bars reopen through the CBD, Picabar’s remained pointedly shut, with furniture cleared out and the courtyard emptied, raising fears it might’ve closed for good. It turns out the owners took the lockdown time to do some extensive renos, thinking bars might be closed longer than they were. Picabar’s…

GEORGE NEILSON is a senior teaching fellow at Curtin University’s business school with a speciality in management techniques. In today’s THINKING ALLOWED he gives a personal perspective of Wuhan, up until recently almost an almost unknown Chinese city – until it was identified as the breeding ground of the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr Neilson says WA’s…

‘An asset for kids, families and city workers’ A NEW inner-city pool is being floated as part of the Perth City Deal, with the old East Perth WACA ground pitched as a possible site.  Perth state Labor MP John Carey and Perth council are gauging interest in the idea, which emerged at the Perth City Summit consultation days Mr…

ABOUT 500 people gathered in Langley Park for a youth rally supporting the Black Lives Matters protests last Saturday.  With posters demanding governments address the appalling rate of Indigenous incarceration in Australia and work towards sovereignty for First Nations people, the grassroots group responsible for organising the protest, Boorloo Justice, guided the chanting protesters through the…

AFTER 21 years, revered Pearl of Highgate patisserie chef Nick Niederberger is retiring.  Building owners Franz Seidl and Hanneke Rekelhof organised a get together for their beloved tenant on July 4 to farewell the master patissier with friends and supporters, including Vincent mayor Emma Cole (Mr Niederberger baked her wedding cake 17 years ago).  Originally from Switzerland…

WITH successive state government plans for an Aboriginal cultural centre having come and gone without a brick being laid, federal Labor MP Patrick Gorman says it’s time for the Commonwealth to fund a national centre in WA.  First the Dowding government’s 1989 plan for a centre at the old Swan Brewery site, then the Court government’s…