Bushland tracks

A constituent recently asked me what program Ryde Council has in place for maintaining bushland tracks in Ryde. I brought the matter up at the Bushland and Environs Advisory Committee to learn that we had not plotted all of our existing tracks and did not undertake systematic maintenance. Consequently I proposed the following motion to Council which was adopted as a Council resolution:

"That the General Manager report to Council on developing a strategy to manage bushland walking tracks in the City of Ryde. The strategy should include:
· mapping the location of all existing bushland tracks on Council land in the City;
· defining varying standards of construction and presentation for tracks used for different purposes;
· categorising existing tracks into the standards to reflect desired use and presentation;
· preparing a costed program to upgrade existing tracks over time to meet the identified standard and to close unwanted tracks, as appropriate;
· presenting a budget for a reasonable maintenance regime to prevent tracks falling into disrepair."

We will await the report and then determine what funding is required to implement a reasonable program.

Saturday tree maintenance

A constituent recently asked me why Ryde Council staff were undertaking maintenance to street trees, seemingly non-urgent work, on a Saturday morning. The response that I have received from management is that parks and gardens staff have been almost fully occupied over the summer period with mowing, trying to keep up with the exceptional growth during the wet summer. Other minor works resulting from ratepayer requests such as rectifying street tree vandalism are being undertaken on Saturdays to ensure a satisfactory response time.

In short, we can't interrupt the heavy mowing schedule or our sportsfields and playgounds would suffer, so to respond to resident requests in a reasonable time we have to attend to other tasks on Saturdays.