Cop it sweet
IN response to Steve Gray’s letter “Testing my limits” (Herald, May 23, 2015) I would like to point out the speed limit defaults to 50kph in unsignposted built-up areas in WA.
If there was no sign on Preston Point Road the limit is 50. Steve needs to face the fact he was speeding and no amount of BS from him is going to appease the relative of somebody killed because he was ignorant of the law.
He can moan all he wants about variations in speed zones, but a good driver will be aware of the signs, the environment and also be aware of road rules.
As a former cop (in another state) I would not have let Steve off as he needs to grow up and cop his punishment when he is in the wrong. Speed cameras are accurate and I’m tipping he only had his penalty reduced because somebody couldn’t be bothered doing a brief and taking it to court.
Steve, we all get pinged at some point—take it like an adult.
Joel Davies
Waddell Rd, Bicton

Proud legacy
I WAS disappointed to read Attadale resident Suzanne Hanley’s opinion of Fremantle mayor Brad Pettitt and the Fremantle council (“Worst council, ever” Herald letters, May 23, 2015).
As a proud member of the “worst council in living memory” (according to Ms Hanley), I would be interested to hear exactly why she believes this, beyond such rhetoric as the mayor is “successfully killing Fremantle”, and it being “a city on its knees”.
Far from crying “poor Fremantle”, I am excited and confident we are on the right track. Mayor Pettitt may rue his inability to read the way retail was going to suffer (Herald, May 16, 2015), but the same could be said of just about anywhere—from Fremantle to Subiaco, Claremont, Perth and across Australia, towns and cities are undergoing retail challenges that require dramatic and creative re-thinking.
Ms Hanley, did you know more businesses have actually opened in Fremantle this year than closed? That there is more than one billion dollars of development planned or already taking place in the city, including new retail space, offices, hotels and apartments?
There has been more progress in Fremantle in the past four years than in the past 30. I’m really proud of that, along with a whole host of other things this council has achieved but not always been recognised for.
Yes, our city has been struggling, and it has taken a frustratingly long time to address that decline and begin to turn things around. You can’t turn a city’s fortunes around overnight, but for the past three-and-a-half years, I am proud to have served alongside Mayor Pettitt and the current council in making some really hard, really tough, really challenging strategic decisions.
Those decisions haven’t always won us many friends, and they haven’t always been perfect, but I believe that within five to 10 years Fremantle’s mayor and council of the day will be busy cutting the ribbons and celebrating a revitalised, dynamic city, where people who live here, visit here and work here will fill the shops and streets.
Mayor Pettitt and the current council, including myself, may not be around to share that glory, but I will always feel privately proud to have been part of such a hardworking, progressive council—the most collaborative council in many years, despite a diverse range of personal politics; a council that has made so many of the tough calls behind the scenes that will have allowed such dynamic change and progress to happen.
If that’s the legacy I will leave as a councillor, I will be proud of that too. Watch this space.
Ingrid Waltham
Samson St, White Gum Valley

Rattle and ropeable
THE development at the old Taskers site on McCabe Street (on the edge of Mosman Park boundary), hasn’t been smooth sailing; from the start the neighbouring residents have had many reasons to complain to the developers.
From the start, demolition caused damage to adjoining homes and there were breaches of asbestos removal requirements.
Mosman Park residents have endured more than two years of living with the dust and noise pollution—including the verbal crude language of the workers—from this monstrous development.
Seven days a week, usually starting before the legal hours of operations, the construction pushes ahead with no regard to neighbours’ peace. Point in fact was this past ANZAC Day, with many Mosman Park residents returning from the Dawn Service to be greeted by the pounding vibrations of a heavy roller along their boundary walls (one resident first thought an earthquake was occurring).
After a conversation about the issues on ANZAC Day with a few neighbours, one of the developers inspected the collapsed ceiling in the garage of a local widow and made a personal promise to have the ceiling repaired by his workers. After weeks of waiting and various attempts to contact him, the widow received an email notifying her his insurance company won’t pay to have the ceiling repaired, leaving her distrustful and footing the repair bill.
Sorry if I sound cynical at this point, but what does an insurance company have to do with a personal promise?
A man is judged by his word and his honour by his actions.
Michael Wall
Wellington St, Mosman Park
The Ed says: This letter has been edited for legal reasons.

Till September comes
TODAY Main Roads has advised that until September, when contractors have advised plans and costs, the 2014 agreement for the widening of High Street still stands.
Therefore it is misinformation by Darryl Binning of Winthrop (Herald letters, May 23, 2015) to write that houses along High Street will be resumed.
Currently, two options are being considered—the tunnel to coast and High Street to Stirling Highway.
I am also informed that tunnels are now cheaper. Bearing in mind that Fremantle would be cut in half with the High Street project, that schoolchildren and that people in wheelchairs would have trouble accessing Stirling Highway, it is common sense to consider the tunnel option, which would leave Fremantle intact and in the event of the port being moved at some future date (which seems inevitable with a growing port) the tunnel access further own the coast would seem more appropriate.
So today I can categorically state that Main Roads has advised that residences along High Street remain the same with a private road and wall and shrubbery to block out noise. That is, until September.
Carmel Callaghan
High St, Fremantle

Nail. Meet head
YOU’RE right, Daryl Binning (Herald letters, May 23, 2015)—you hit the nail right on the head.
To be in a position of losing your home would be devastating. I was involved in the pro-bypass group back in 2001-2003. There is one thing at all the “Greenies” and “do-gooders” forget—freight on rail according to the WA planning commission was only ever going to be 30 per cent.
It was always going to be road transport (now mostly 40-footers) for 70 per cent of containers.
Get your calculator out and work this figure out—more than one million containers a year. The blame for this debacle lies firmly on the shoulders of the Gallop Labor government and Tagliaferri’s mob on the council.
They killed the bypass in 2003 and made life hell for the High Street residents for the past 13 years. The dangers of diesel fumes, etc were well publicised back then, but were ignored by the government of the day.
Get your heads out of the sand and look at the big picture. These trucks are never going to go away. Make our suburban roads safer for us residents, not turn our local roads into a freight route. Bring back the bypass.
Brian Lethbridge
Samson

Freo pensioners to feel rates pain
CITY of Fremantle ratepaying pensioners have for years enjoyed a better deal than most other ratepayers in WA via the rates billing system used by the council.
Most local governments list separately all services—fire & emergency services levy $180, security patrol $40 and waste services $350.
Fremantle has never listed the waste charge, including it in the improved rates. The state government’s rates concession only applied to the improved rates as a percentage of GRV.
Fremantle pensioners have been receiving a 50 per cent discount on their waste removal so the new concession system—capped to a dollar amount regardless of GRV—will be a harder hit for Fremantle pensioners than others.
Michael Whitworth
Caribbean Dve, Safety Bay

Give ABC a sporting chance
A LOT of older and disabled people, unable to get to a sport’s venue, enjoy watching their favourite sport on TV.
ABC TV (our tax-payer funded national broadcaster) was great with its coverage of lawn bowls until this was axed some time back.
Now, Saturday WA Football League football has suffered the same fate.
First, the lawn bowls were great, even though some of the games were replays. Those could be shown again without a lot of expense to the ABC.
The WAFL matches were always a joy to watch, as the game hadn’t developed into the rough and crowded modern game of the AFL today.
One of the best WAFL games to watch on TV was the state game; I was disappointed when that game too was not shown this year.
I know not all TV viewers watch sport, but a large percentage do.
It appears the Abbott government and the ABC are cutting costs at the expense of the older and disabled population.
Frank Granger
Melville Beach Rd, Applecross 

Get your teeth into these names
RECENTLY on a camping trip in station country north of Shark Bay, one of the other campers—a recently arrived American from New Hamster—asked me why the name of the town where we bought our food was called Carnivore.
Not thinking, I replied it was because the coastal city to the south was Herbivore and the one to the north was Omnivore.
CE Dortch
Howard St, Frogmantle

It’ll be a road to rue
I HOPE there is a massive public protest against the Barnett government’s determination to press ahead with the Perth Freight Link, and I hope to join it.
It seems like the most stubborn, bloody-minded course of action by this increasingly socially and fiscally irresponsible premier, determined to get this fractious, losing project irrevocably underway before he leaves office or gets turfed out.
lt is so disruptive, so expensive, and so pointless if Fremantle port is to reach its maximum capacity within a decade, necessitating a second port at Kwinana where rail is the obvious way to go for transportation.
Normally, an elected government should be allowed to progress with its plans, but occasionally—and this is one such occasion—every attempt should be made to prevent a major error in judgement.
If we don’t prevent it, we’ll all be ruing it and paying for it whilst Mr Barnett sits back and gloats in retirement.
Gerald Hitchcock
Jenkin St, South Fremantle