A PUBLIC meeting arranged by DA PR councillor, Warren Burne, and Ward 18 councillor, Bruce Sutcliffe, is set to focus on a range of issues which are affecting residents in the Westville and Cowies Hill areas. Residents are encouraged to attend the meeting on Wednesday, 27 May at the Westville Civic Centre, at 7pm.
Burne said, “The object of the meeting is to enable municipal officials to investigate the specific matters which residents are unhappy about, and to report back to the residents about those specific issues. I am in the process of compiling an agenda in collaboration with some of the more vocal Westville residents.
“Part of the role of a councillor is to receive complaints from residents and to channel the complaints to the correct officials.
“There are recurring issues on which Bruce and I receive regular comments and complaints, and we decided that the best way to communicate the necessary information from municipal officials to the community at large would be to do so through the means of a public meeting.
“The meeting is intended to deal with the problems in Westville and Cowies Hill specifically. Parts of those suburbs fall within Ward 18, Ward 24 and Ward 92.
“I intend to have follow-up meetings in three months’ time and another one in six months’ time to track how the problems which are raised at the first meetings are dealt with over the ensuing months. If it seems necessary to do so, another meeting can be convened within the next month or two.”
A draft agenda has been formulated and some of the issues that will be discussed at the meeting include: Westville CBD upgrade, speeding and traffic calming measures, overgrown verges, weed spraying on verges and traffic islands, clearing of street gutters, clearing of storm water drains, abandoned or derelict properties, properties undergoing extended building work, road surfaces that need attention, proliferation of alien vegetation and efforts to remove invasive alien plants, Westville swimming pool, the condition of the M13 through Westville, lack of decent pathways in Westville, the pedestrian stairs on either side of the Attercliffe Road bridge and general noise pollution in Westville.
At this stage, the names of the municipal officials who will attending the meeting could not be confirmed.