PERTH commuters are getting to work late because of a new bus stop built behind trees and three metres from the road. A Voice reader and commuter describes the positioning of the Lord Street bus stop as a joke: “It’s ridiculous,” she says. “If you sit at the bus stop you can’t see a thing…

A MASSIVE New Year’s Eve party for Wellington Square has been thrown a lifeline after Perth city council staff initially opposed the event. The 15,000-person Origin NYE party’s already being advertised around town as being held in Wellington Square so it was a nervous moment for organisers when staff recommended it be knocked back. A…

“I MOVE an alternative motion to support the robots.” It’s not Vincent council siding with our automaton overlords, just Cr Ros Harley showing support for artist Si Hummerston’s robot sculptures in North Perth’s town centre. The council’s expert art team nominated some weird-legged geometric shapes as its first preference but the elected members reckoned robots…

FROM the late 1890s through the early 19th century, Methodist Manse was the home to the reverends of the old Wesleyan Church on Charles Street. Now the 116-year-old Newcastle Street building’s on the chopping block, an eight-storey office and apartment block planned for the site. The building was in line to be heritage listed back…

Vote weighting? Don’t you worry about that! PREMIER Colin Barnett is refusing to rule out vote-weighting as part of his decision to merge the cities of Perth and Vincent. The move—likened to a “Bjelke-Petersen Queensland-style gerrymander”—would effectively give voters in the existing City of Perth more voting power than people now in Vincent. “Vincent residents…

LIBERAL MP Michael Sutherland is in the sights of local party members aghast at confirmation that some of Mt Lawley is to shift from Stirling to Bayswater city council. Former Liberal Party branch president Paul Collins claims Mr Sutherland didn’t fight the move hard enough because his wife Michelle is a Bayswater councillor, and that…

FIRST it took St Patrick, now it’s stolen St Nick: Fremantle’s Santa Fun Run has shifted to Leederville. Having already stolen the annual St Patrick’s Day festival from Freo, the Santa Fun Run to raise cash for Variety will be held during the Light Up Leederville carnival this year. Vincent council approved it this week…

DOZENS of dog walkers breaking the law every day can now walk their pooches on Charles Veryard Reserve in North Perth, without worrying about ending up in the slammer. A dog walker who fronted the Vincent council meeting imploring it to make the practise legal said “we are good people [but] what we do at…

COLIN BARNETT’S controversial local development assessment panels racked up $405,500 in members’ sitting fees last financial year. The DAPs are unpopular with many WA councils, which view them as an expensive layer of bureaucracy that strips elected councillors of decision-making power on major planning decisions. The panels consist of five members: two are drawn from…

YOUNG architects, urban planners and hobby historians are banding together to campaign for the old Savoy Hotel to be reopened. Now 100 years old, the federation free classical building was designed by famed architect John Talbot Hobbs, a Great War officer known for anachronistic kindness towards his men in an era of callous commanders. On…