A FREMANTLE councillor says the City should apologise to its community after a 15-year plan to replace the toilets at South Beach collapsed in a heap this week.
On Wednesday evening the council voted to reject the only two tenders submitted to build the toilets and change rooms, which would have featured a space specifically designed for people with disabilities, because they were too far above the budget allocated.
“For a lot of my time this round on council, I’ve been effectively apologising to the south Fremantle community about the state of the change rooms at South Beach going on for 15 years,” Cr Andrew Sullivan lamented.
• Cr Andrew Sullivan
Indictment
“The words incompetent were used quite a lot on social media today, and they’re not words I necessarily share… but I do feel absolutely that the process has been unbelievably underwhelming and a collective indictment about the way in which we go have gone about replacing or responding to the need to replace these buildings.
“We have exhausted a 15-year timeframe.”
Cr Sullivan urged his colleagues to consider a budget review to find extra money to build the facility, otherwise hundreds of thousands of dollars spent consulting and designing already would be wasted.
“But I want to say really clearly that we can’t chop massive elements out of the proposal that took so long to get the community to say ‘yes, that’s what we need’.”
South Fremantle precinct convenor Lisa Barnes said in hindsight the council should have tried to limp along with the old toilets until its building plans were more solid.
“Also, I noticed a few weeks ago that the external shower were removed from the adjacent parklands, and these were highly popular and utilised by families and others without needing to access the portable facilities we now have.
“We also don’t have any barbecues at the beach – South Beach is looking quite poor and unloved at the moment.”
Co-convenor Gina Blakemore said the lack of facilities at the beach were starting to push homeless people and drug users onto Parmelia Park, impacting on locals’ enjoyment.
“The broken barbecues are sending groups who dumpster dive at the South Fremantle shopping centre; [they] bring trolley-loads of rotten meat which our dogs eat and get sick and we have to get the vet.
“We have needless needles left around the picnic table and the toilets; people drinking in front of the toddlers and parents in the playground.
“It’s probably best to keep going with the build of the toilets and spread the cost of the build over many years.
“Public hygiene and toilet amenities seem more important at this stage; it’s come down to a point of urgency.”
Mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge said officers were trying to do the right thing by working steadily through a long list of asset improvements, but constructing the toilets had come at the worst time.
“I think if you ask anyone who’s doing a construction project at the moment, particularly ones like this – public works – have all of these constraints around how they’re procured and all of that.
“It’s not a good time at all, and escalation is a massive issue.
“So we need to find a solution, to go back to the officers and say ‘how do we fix this’.
“We can have another look at construction methodology and see if that is one of the reasons this has come in at such a big number.”
by STEVE GRANT