BEGGARS may soon be outlawed in Perth, with the city council considering asking the WA government to “reintroduce a law to make begging an offence”. Begging is illegal in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Queensland. The PCC’s finance committee is looking at bringing together homelessness agencies to assist in “dealing with the issues causing begging”.…

WORKS are underway at the Oxford Street park. Vincent council’s giving the area a facelift, with: • more shadzed seating near the playground for parents to have a coffee and keep an eye on the kids; • the park extended to the coffee shop so there’s not a road separating it from the park; •…

TEN security cameras have been installed at the Terry Tyzack aquatic centre following a spate of car break-ins. The state-of-the-art cameras, positioned around the centre and car park, will be linked to the WA police “blue iris” CCTV network and have day and night capability. Stirling mayor Giovanni Italiano says the extra surveillance will give…

PERTH city council has rejected Subiaco’s proposal for an all-in merger, instead preferring to take just the juiciest parts of its neighbour’s infrastructure assets. Perth lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi stressed her council’s first preference remained its own submission to slightly expand its borders to take in a small slither of Vincent along with Burswood, UWA,…

PLANS for WA’s first waste-to-energy plant are in doubt after the WA environmental protection authority ordered a 12-month review of the facility over “potential air quality issues” and public concern. The eastern metropolitan regional council wants to build the $25 million plant 15km north-east of Perth in Hazelmere, at an existing recycling site, to convert…

  THE kids from North Perth primary are coming back for your olives, after last year’s inaugural harvest produced an award-winning oil. What started as a small fundraiser plan to raise money for a new playground went massive when Voice readers offered up their trees, groaning with fruit, for plucking. The kids collected more than…

BEAUFORT STREET landlords are fuming after being issued bills for shopfront alterations made by Stirling city council and the WA government during their road-widening program. They say the bills are inflated and if they’d been able to get the work done themselves, it would have cost a fraction of what’s being sought. Astor Theatre owner…

BEAUFORT STREET is being revived with a slew of big developments on the horizon. Low foot traffic, empty buildings, an invasion of bars and the exodus of independent retailers has left the once-thriving street down in the dumps. “We’re at risk that Beaufort Street, that northern end, simply becomes a ghost town,” Vincent mayor John…

  “YOU’RE neglecting the community,” Dudley Maier told Vincent council this week. The former veteran councillor labelled community consultation over the Beaufort Street arcade development as abysmal. He pointed out that according to the council’s own map of who had been sent a consultation form, council carparks had been sent four. Several mistakes in the…

THE bizarre instruments came first, but when French troupe La Fausse Compagnie read Maylands artist/author Shaun Tan’s The Arrival it was a case of art imitating art, imitating life. “We discover at the beginning of our show picture of street musicians [in Tan’s book]. It is coincidence because we have here,” Thomas Le Saulnier told…