Spinning a yarn
I AM writing in reply to Mr Frank Granger’s letter “Cycle Curfew” (Herald, November 18, 2017).
The writer’s claim that most accidents [actually crashes not accidents] usually happen early morning or late afternoon caught my attention, so I did a fact check. Referring to the Australian Roads Death Database, 252 cyclist fatalities are listed for the period 2011-2017.
Assuming, for the sake of simplicity, the hours of daylight are between 7am and 6pm, I note that 70 deaths occurred during the hours of darkness and 182 during daylight hours.
Whoops, it seems that most crashes actually occur during the day.
Of greater concern however is that during that same period there were 8,412 deaths on our roads of which 253 were cyclists.
It seems to me Mr Granger needs to rethink his priorities and to reflect on where the real issue lies.
We can of course then go into the data analysis (well published), showing where the highest risk is to bicycle riders, and I am afraid that is the motorist—80 per cent of bicycle rider fatalities are the fault of motorists.
So no, Mr Granger, your curfew is not a solution.
I suggest rather that you might want to start with respecting all road users, irrespective of their choice of transport.
After all, it comes down to common sense, care and courtesy.
Andrew Priest,
Bicycle rider and motor vehicle operator
Fothergill Street, Fremantle

Barling v Ross
I READ with some astonishment the accusations quoted by Wave Park Group boss Andrew Ross in the story, “Puppet fears over ACAG meeting” (Herald, November 11, 2017).
It’s disturbing to think that Mr Ross feels that councillors simply meeting with constituents should be labeled as something clandestine.
Elected representatives listening to the concerns of voters is an essential part of our democracy and it seems strange that his group should be so offended by such a thing.
It is also troubling to think that Mr Ross might have either City of Melville councillors and/or residents under surveillance.
Is this not also a peculiar way to treat the democratic process of local government?
Additionally I find it bizarre for someone to suggest that because councillors meet with residents they will be so captured by their views as to become puppets.
Is Mr Ross suggesting that councillors should not be allowed to talk to anyone?
It is the duty of a councillor to listen to and consider all sides of an issue.
Cr Tim Barling,
City of Melville

Chicken Licken
ACCORDING to a couple of recent letters in the Herald, the sky is falling in at Leighton beach due to the extension of the dog beach by 200 or so metres.
What miserable souls these complainants must be, with the acres of beach that dogs are not allowed on at their disposal.  I have always said that if you should walk through the dog beach and fail to come out without a smile on your face at the sight of dogs being dogs and enjoying themselves in the sand and waves there must be something wrong with your view of life.
It is a good job they do not live in UK, where dogs are a way of life and appear to accompany their owners everywhere, pubs, public transport and most national parks.
Geoff Dunstone
Carrington Street, Palmyra

Ruff treatment
MAYOR and councillors, what on earth possessed you to extend the Leighton dog beach further south?
The previous arrangement was more than satisfactory and dog owners were notorious for abusing the non dog beach area, when there was no need and no management by the council to see they abided by the rules.
For many years we have used that beach walking from our home in North Fremantle.
We tolerate the invasion by non-compliant and uncaring dog owners as their dogs invade our space, fouling the area at will.
I can’t help but wonder if dogs have taken over the world with them seemingly having more rights than people.
We used to own a dog and religiously used the dog beach for 15 years finding it perfectly adequate.
More recently my husband was running along the beach further south when he was attacked by an unleashed dog which ripped a large gaping hole in his calf which required hospital emergency treatment and frequent wound care for six weeks after.
Naturally, the owner expressed no concern and was never caught or fined as there was no official around.
Please change your decision so we can return to our beach this summer and enjoy the peace and quiet and leave the dogs where they were with plenty of room and the ability to walk north to Cottesloe dog beach when the beach returns in front of the rocks.
It would be interesting to see just how many of the dog owners who use the beach are actually Fremantle residents—very few I imagine!
Ann Kelly
Foundry Court, North Fremantle

Hoonsville
WHY has Fremantle council and the police allowed Beach Street, a highly residential area, to be turned into a race track for unruly hoons.
Between the hours of eight and ten on Saturday evening, October 18, between fifty and a hundred hoons in high powered, noisy cars raced up and down Beach Street.
It is more by luck, than judgement, that an innocent resident crossing the road, or using the road, wasn’t killed or injured by these rev-headed fools.
Fremantle council has installed an “Eyes on the Street Tower” in the carpark, but for reasons best known to themselves, they haven’t connected it?
Fremantle council advises the Beach Street carpark remains open during the evening to provide parking for customers of the new restaurants and pubs recently opened in the area.
They would have been lucky to find a space last Saturday, and hopefully none of the fools in question were drinking?
A police presence is most certainly needed in Beach Street over the weekends.
Bob Loftus
Beach Street, Fremantle

Big Mac arena
MOST stadiums in Australia have a paid sponsor’s name.
Why not, if it helps with paying the huge cost of getting it built.
I was pleased that our present government got the best possible deal with Optus for the naming rights for our new Perth Stadium.
Over my life time I have been a member of many sporting clubs; as most people will know most clubs are short of money.
One popular way to raise money was to have a plaque engraved with the donors name engraved on a chair, in doing so it more than paid for the new chair.
This could be done at our new stadium and the Perth Arena.
The public could be invited to pay for a plaque with their name inscribed on a seat in the grandstand; the idea could go a lot further with corporate boxes being also up for naming rights.
There is no end to the possibilities of this fund raiser or how much money it would raise.
Frank Granger.
Melville Beach Road, Applecross 

People power
YOUR story “Puppet Fears over ACAG Meeting” (Herald, November 18, 2017), need raise no eyebrows.
In the recent council elections, ACAG looked for independent candidates who shared concerns regarding the Wave Park, resumption of sports fields for development, lack of transparency at the city of Melville, lack of community consultation by the city, and yes, even the puppetry of the previous council where the mayor’s supporters voted unquestioningly for all of the above on every occasion.
We did not have to look very far, and the ratepayers endorsed these concerns by electing four such candidates with a thumping majority (66 per cent) over their closest rivals.
David Maynier
Burke Drive, Attadale

Port-a-while
I JOINED hundreds at a standing-room only forum in Fremantle this week to hear the McGowan government’s alternatives to the Perth Freight Link and the out-dated Fremantle Port.
We heard some exciting stories about the opportunities for secondary processing of our natural resources rather than continued exporting of raw materials.
It seems countries in the Asian region attach high value and would pay well for our agricultural products, and that WA could become the world’s ‘Lithium Valley’ by working-up our deposits of rare lithium for the next generation of wonder batteries.
We heard why a modern port with adjoining infrastructure and land for industry to grow is the linchpin for these opportunities and that Kwinana is the ideal location.  Great, so what’s the government doing to get this happening and when will it be operational?
Well, they’re setting up a committee of government officers—with two years to explore options for ports development!
The presentation by the Westport Taskforce chair, Nicole Lockwood, described a freight planning agenda rather than preparations for work to start at Kwinana.  That would mean even more planning-time needed on details such as port design, a building program and sources of project funding.
Surely a ‘shovel-ready’ Stage 1 of Kwinana Port would be a reasonable first-term target after all the years of planning by previous governments and the pre-election promises by McGowan and Wyatt on the new harbour?
Isn’t a clear signal of government priority and a climate of project urgency needed for WA to seize these export opportunities…while they’re still available?
B McCallum
McCabe Street, Mosman Park

Why do you want it there?
It occurs to me that those of us who are trying desperately to protect the Alfred Cove ‘A’ Class Nature Reserve and associated Marine Park are running ourselves into the ground in an effort to justify our position.
Meanwhile it seems as if the proponent has had a stroke of luck and no longer has to have the proposal assessed by the environmental authorities.
Surely it should be the proponent of the artificial wave park who has to justify why his facility should be on this site.
Don’t tell us that the facility will facilitate the health and wellbeing of those who use it—this will be the case wherever the wave park is situated.
Tell us why it should be sited on Bush Forever Site 331, a site that is crying out to be added into the ‘A’ Class Nature Reserve now that the opportunity has arisen.
Don’t tell us that the facility will bring welcome income to the city of Melville—this will be the case wherever the wave park is situated.  Tell us why it should be sited within 3 metres of an ‘A’ Class Nature Reserve at parts of this site.
Don’t tell us that the facility will create jobs for locals—this will be the case wherever the wave park is situated.
Tell us why it should be partially sited on Crown Land that has been designated to be added into the Conservation Estate since 1999 as a Proposed Nature Reserve and which serves as a buffer to the Marine Park, a buffer that should be up to 50 metres wide as best practice for protection of wetlands.
Don’t tell us that the facility will be good for tourism—this will be the case wherever the wave park is situated.
Tell us why the local and migratory birds that already bring tourists from Australia and overseas to the Reserve should be, at best, put under stress and, at worst, threatened by this commercial concern.
Don’t tell us that the facility will be accessible to people of all ages and levels of ability—this will be the case wherever the wave park is situated.
Tell us why it should be on this rare public open space with access to the peaceful river foreshore, which has significant cultural and ecological importance.
Robin Napier
Groves Ave, Attadale

Roundup the usual suspects
JOHN’S advice to City of Fremantle to stop using glyphosate (“Ban Glyphosate”, Herald Letters, November 18, 2017),) sounds good but lacked the provision of an alternative ‘weed management’ solution.
Are the citizens of Fremantle more health conscious than time poor?
Would they prefer to weed the path/kerb/road adjoining their property to manage this annual nuisance?
Alternatively, given that most residents are apparently not eating the weeds (fresh or steam cured by the city’s other contractor), we could accept that the risks to most residents from the one-off annual application are extremely low.
Anyone who has watched the weed’s progress following the ‘Steam Management’ process will note that it takes four to five applications over the same growth period to ‘knock down’ the weeds.
Even when followed up with whipper snippering of the limp exposed vegetation, they still generally bounce back.
I accept that use of pesticides should to be minimised, particularly in our food chain, and will generally hand weed in my own patch.
Robert Jack
Marine Terrace, South Fremantle