Mt Pleasant foreshore has been left in the dark after Melville councillors rejected applications to replace corroded footpath lighting, despite community safety risks.
Safety Concerns Ignored
The council was told at its meeting last week the “highly used path” currently has unlit sections and areas where the light poles have corroded, making it unsafe for the public. The project would focus on repairing lights and poles along the foreshore that have been damaged due to their proximity to water.
“Different sections of it are in different conditions, some of it is actually unsafe and has been switched off,” city director of environment and infrastructure Jim Coten said. “Some of the lights are corroding and some of the footings of the lights have been impacted by erosion on the path, so some of it just doesn’t meet standards.”
“It is a highly used path, and we have had to turn it off in some areas. Not having lighting there in some of those sections does increase our risk exposure as well in terms of liability claims,” he added.
Council Debate
City officers reviewed applications from contractors Northlake Electrical and Leadsun Australia to design and construct the new lights, recommending that council approve one of the options to ensure the works got underway.
Councillor Clive Ross said the work was needed to keep the community safe. “There’s a danger to the residents walking by because of probably short-circuiting in the wiring, and so lights have been turned off,” he said. “We’re in winter now and it gets dark fairly early and it gets bright fairly late. Having these lights along the footpath, which is used by everyone in the city, is important from a safety perspective.”
“To just turn the lights off and say ‘well, too bad, they’ve corroded now and therefore we’re not going to fix them’ is not the city doing its job,” Ross added.
Cr Daniel Lim agreed, warning of a potential “catastrophe situation” if the council delayed too long. “It’s a very well used path, (the lighting) protects the women and the seniors that use that path in really early mornings,” he said. “I understand that there is hesitation to go ahead because we haven’t consulted the residents nearby, but ... we have done our best to do the right thing, and this is the next best thing that we have to do.”
Community Consultation
Despite the reported urgency, some councillors voiced concern over the lack of community consultation with residents affected by glare from the lights. Mr Coten told councillors the city initially sought applications for a design only to allow for community consultations before construction, but did not receive any.
“If we had a design, we would have actually had something that we could do the consultation on, but as it’s turned out we’re going for the design and construction in one go,” he said. “The project is a design and construct ... when the concept design has been developed, that will be shared with the community including letter box drops to the adjacent properties.”
Future Risks
Councillors also questioned if the lighting replacements would see the same corrosive issues repeated. “There has been safety issues with the infrastructure itself - electrical safety, possibility of corrosion of footings, and therefore likelihood of poles coming down,” Cr Scott Green said. “Why would we then build some more lights there to expose ourselves to the same risks and, perhaps, have to spend more money again?”
Mr Coten said contractors would reposition the lighting infrastructure so it wasn’t exposed to the river. “It would be a combination of light poles and bollards, but it would be located in a more appropriate location than on the river edge,” he said.
Mr Coten warned that rejecting the applications would pose a reputational risk to the city. “We may not get much response from the market when we go to tender again. We didn’t get a lot of tenderers for this particular job, so that would be a risk that if we did decide to do it in future, we wouldn’t get people bidding for it,” he said. “We’ve got some submissions for design and construct, so if we don’t award it would be natural that tenderers in future may be a bit wary about tendering for City of Melville jobs.”
Cr Ross said the lack of community consultation should not prevent approval, as it’s not a requirement every time the city replaces a streetlight. “The city’s reputation is on the line. Not going forward with it will make it even harder to get someone further down the track. I ask that you support it and we just move forward with fulfilling our responsibilities (and) keeping the residents safe,” he said.
Councillors voted 6-4 to reject the contract applications, meaning the project to repair damaged Mt Pleasant foreshore lighting will be placed on hold.
