fiz_thom

Dear Mayor and
Councillors,

Imposition,
apparently without Notice to the Public,
of Large Obtrusive Telecommunications
Cabinets on Beaumaris Beach Park

Beaumaris
Conservation Society Inc. has been told by
the Member for Sandringham,
Murray Thompson MLA, that a
constituent had expressed concern to him
over the adverse effect on the Beach Park
landscape of recent installation of
telecommunications cabinets on the edge of
Beach Park, Beaumaris,
closest to Beach Road, opposite 369 Beach
Road, Beaumaris,
which is between McGregor and Surf Avenues
(Melway 86A7).

Stark
Telecommunications Cabinets that could
benefit from screening planting

Unilateral

Imposition:
Beaumaris
Conservation Society Inc. has had no
notice that such an installation was
proposed, or that there was any public
notice on the site to announce the
proposal. This use of the power of Commonwealth
legislation to impose
telecommunications infrastructure without
prior public notification is not supported
by Beaumaris
Conservation Society Inc. as it can lead
to unnecessary and avoidable degrading of
highly important and greatly regarded
landscapes.

Screening

Planting Suggested: Until that
excessively authoritarian legislative
approach is modified, it would seem that
the best treatment to minimize the effect
on the landscape and view here of the
single-minded and insensitive approach
taken to this unilateral siting would be
for Bayside City Council, as the Committee
of Management of Beach Park, to plant some
suitable indigenous coastal planting on
either side of, and on the seaward side
of, the cabinets to soften their present
stark outline. We suggest that the plants
should be only a little higher than the
height of the cabinets.

Undergrounding
would be Better:
It is better that the cabinets were placed
on this purely grassed area rather than on
some relatively undisturbed area of
indigenous foreshore vegetation. That
grassed area was formed by the former City
of Sandringham
having filled that land with waste
material and then grassing it over. An
even better outcome, which might still be
possible, would have been the undergrounding of
the cabinets, which
should
not be a major problem in this high,
well-drained position. There are no tree
roots to risk damaging in that section of
filled land.

The antenna
component of the installation is
relatively small, and has been placed on
and close to an existing lamp pole, and it
does not extend higher than it.

Beaumaris Conservation
Society Inc. would appreciate being
informed about whether the Council decides
to arrange some screening planting as
suggested, please.

Yours sincerely,

Adrian Cerbasi

President

Beaumaris Conservation
Society Inc.

cc.
      Mr Murray Thompson
MLA, Member for Sandringham;
Mr Noel Pullen
MLC, Member for Higinbotham;

Hon John Thwaites
MLA, Minister for the Environment, Mr David Davis
MLC, Shadow Minister for the Environment,

Mr Andrew Robb
MHR, Member for Goldstein; Bayside
Leader