VINCENT council will officially pull out of the Leederville Gardens Retirement Village by July next year. Vincent has been managing the 66-unit village since 2002, but a restructure and staff turnover has left it so short of people qualified to run a retirement home that it’s had to call in consultants to help. Now it…

MOHAMMAD sits quietly in Stirling Gardens near council house, scattering oats to a small crowd of pigeons before scooping one up and attaching a ring of colourful plastic to its leg. It’s to celebrate Christmas, says the Afghani refugee. The former construction worker moved to Perth 13 years ago, a peak time in the Afghanistan…

AN environmental group say they were snubbed by environment minister Albert Jacob when they tried to deliver a petition against plastic bags earlier this week. Greenpeace-affiliated Ban the Bag campaigners spent two months trying to organise a meeting with Mr Jacob, but were told a ban on single use plastic shopping bags is not something…

MANNA INC has been given a lifeline by Vincent council to keep feeding homeless people in Weld Square. The council has been under pressure to move the volunteer service after 90 petitioners complained it was leading to anti-social behaviour close to their homes and businesses. But a search of the city hasn’t found anywhere else…

A LEMON scented gum has become just the seventh privately-owned entry on Vincent council’s inventory of significant trees. The gum tree (Corymbia citriodora) at 19 Dunedin Street in Mount Hawthorn was found to provide good shade cover and be of “outstanding aesthetic quality” by a council-appointed arborist. “Assessment has revealed a well-formed crown structure and…

YOKINE resident Rae Willis has won the 2016 Bert Harris award for supporting victims of crime. The award is the attorney general’s highest honour, but Ms Willis says she received it on behalf of dozens of other volunteers who also deserved it. Families Ms Willis volunteers with the Victim Support and Child Witness Service, guiding…

YOU’D think floristry would be a pretty green game all round, but many flowers rack up huge carbon miles being imported from overseas and are packaged in nature-strangling plastic. Northbridge florist Stacey Lenstra has just picked up a Switch Your Thinking award for her greener approach. She sources flowers locally, cutting down on fuel and…

THE Multicultural Services Centre WA is planning to move its wellness centre in North Perth to Morley. MSCWA wanted to move the centre from an existing council-owned building on Woodville Reserve to a bigger one it was planning to build, but negotiations with Vincent council have broken down and it’s now looking to buy elsewhere.…

A UNITY PICNIC organised by the WA Greens has been staged in Hyde Park to combat a rise in racism. Greens senator Rachel Siewert says; “there’s been quite a lot of negative talk about multiculturalism, and hate speech, and so we thought it was an opportunity to show we are a strong multicultural community, to…

MT LAWLEY Liberal MLA Michael Sutherland will host a meth forum this week following concerns raised by constituents about family members or others in the community using the drug. Some outer-lying suburbs have been plagued by meth labs (which occasionally blow up) but Mr Sutherland says “it’s not an overt problem” in his electorate. Instead…