Sapra encourages more community participation
With only 350 out of 2 000 community members being active Sapra subscribers, the residents’ association encourages more members to join.
The Saxonwold and Parkwood Residents Association (Sapra) has an idea of building the community. Chairman of Sapra, Bill Haslam said the area has very few schools and religious organisations which offer residents places to meet.
Alternatively, they then have the annual Halloween event that enables community members to come together. He said the SGI Buddhist Centre in Parkwood has been trying to come up with ideas to involve the community and at the end of July 15 people went there for a blood donation.
“We have 350 active members out of about 2 000 residents so we would like to increase those numbers. We have an active Facebook page. All of the Sapra committee members are volunteers. We also have our website which has a lot of info on how you can pay subscriptions and more. We also have WhatsApp groups where we share information such as property rates, etc.,” said Haslam.
Regarding town planning issues, the chairman said they are actively involved with the nodal review as there are a lot of changes that come with it. “We spend a lot of time negotiating with the City making sure rights of residents are upheld. We pay for a town planner who is an architect and we have five people in the town planning sub-committee.”
Haslam said they prefer slow developments in the designated business areas of the suburbs of at least three-storey buildings and not seven-storey building proposals.
“We have two important parks in our area, Zoo Lake and Fearnhead Park. We provide funds to Zoo Lake Users Committee and we maintain Fearnhead Park. We have asked CAP to assist with homeless people there from time to time. We also have a good relationship with the Zoo as we let them advertise their events on our social pages. Our garden committee also helps out with maintaining pavements there too,” said Haslam.
Sapra has a green team which comprises of two guys who work twice a week in keeping the suburbs clean. One lives at the shelter in Rosebank. Sapra Secretary Marcelle Ravid said, “The more people pay subs, the more we can afford more members of the green team. The green team cleans on different areas every shift, they paint street signs, weed pavements, and so on.”
Ravid also mentioned that there is a cavity on Bolton and Newport roads that has been there for two years and that electricity and water outages are always a challenge in the area.
Haslam said they are looking at entering into an agreement with City Power for the protection of the substation.
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