Whiteman St issues

Thank you for your coverage of the problems caused by the works to Tram Stop 125 on Whiteman St. Like all Whiteman St residents, I am fed up to my back teeth with the problems caused by the removal of 25 car parks and subsequent worsening of the floods on our street.

The failure to install the promised green space (until your paper championed it) also rankles, as do third-rate engineering non-solutions, the financial wastage and utter disregard shown to local residents.

We didn’t ask for these changes and we didn’t need or want them. It’s great for the restaurant trams, not so good for the thousands of locals who have to wade through water to get to our homes.  

The results of removing car parks, drains and banking-up half the road in an already problematic area could have been foreseen by an eight year old.

  And it beggars belief that the council would wait until the winter rains hit before attempting to rectify problem – particularly since residents alerted them to the flooding in February.

The most recent drainage works cover less than half the newly-created banked-up area, are clearly inadequate and have done nothing to remove the semi-permanent pool of water created at the southern end of the tram stop caused by blocking access to functioning drains.

Inexplicably, last week’s garden installation forced more than 200 residents to walk 100 metres around/through this morass of stagnant water rather than use the tram-stop entryway located directly opposite our building doors.

Yet another example of their inability to consider the needs of locals ... or successfully plant a nature strip.

  To top it off, it’s painfully obvious that the new drainage works with their tiny run of narrow-circumference plastic tubing will not halt the flooding, or even restore the situation to the pre-works status.

  Anyway, thank-you for reporting on the flooding and continuing to assist residents in our efforts to rectify the problems worsened by Yarra Trams and Melbourne City Council. 

It’s great to have a paper that champions local issues.

Please keep up the good work.

Michael Ratcliff