Columns » Southbank Residents’ Association

Southbank open space funding: too little too late?

July 6th, 2022 - Tony Penna

The budget has once again been handed down and there are no surprises for Southbank. No surprises insofar that, as has been for years, City Rd upgrade still stumbles along with no real commitment to see through the masterplan.

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Neighbourhood policing

June 8th, 2022 - Tony Penna

Victoria Police has launched a new policing initiative, surprisingly called “neighbourhood policing”.

Election time

May 11th, 2022 - Tony Penna

The Federal Election is in full-swing, and it was great to have a full house for our recent “Meet the Candidates” event. Southbank Residents’ Association (SRA) has been holding these events for 20 years and it is rare when we don’t achieve a full house.

Open space and elections

April 7th, 2022 - Tony Penna

This month we will see the City of Melbourne start the process of trying to identify new open spaces in Southbank – the direct result of a $20 million allocation in the current budget.

Emerging from COVID

March 9th, 2022 - Tony Penna

It seems we are certainly coming out of our COVID restrictions as things are moving with the City of Melbourne. Much is happening in Southbank and the next few months are going to be busy.

Welcome to 2022!

February 10th, 2022 - Tony Penna

I hope our community was able to find some much-deserved time away or to get out and about before Omicron started to settle in. Sadly, just when we thought we were there, we seemed to have gone back into a self-imposed lockdown. I have noticed the streets around Southbank and the CBD are still very quiet compared to pre-COVID.

Another year has passed us by …

December 10th, 2021 - Southbank News

President Much of the year being locked down partly explains a year that, in my opinion, has produced little productivity within Southbank.

Addressing road safety

November 10th, 2021 - Tony Penna

In conjunction with the great news of finally being released from our COVID-19 lockdowns, I was delighted to meet with the Department of Transport to discuss the proposed changes to the City Rd and Power St intersection.

What a bumper of a month

October 6th, 2021 - Tony Penna

We started the month with the Southbank Residents’ Association (SRA) AGM where we were so fortunate to have elected a full committee of 12 with 10 being new members.

Cementing Southbank as the arts capital

September 9th, 2021 - Tony Penna

Early this month Southbank Residents’ Association held its annual general meeting (AGM), with Melbourne Arts Precinct Team (MAPT) as the guest speaker to update us on the status of the $1.5 billion precinct upgrade which includes the new NGV contemporary gallery

Here we are again

August 5th, 2021 - Tony Penna

We’ve emerged from another lockdown, yet the rules in our buildings always seem to be changing.

Council budget

July 8th, 2021 - Tony Penna

This year, owing to changes to the Local Government Act 2020, the council now needs to present a four-year budget, which it did last month.

Don’t say we told you so!

June 9th, 2021 - Tony Penna

Who would have thought the day this newspaper was distributed last month was the day I told the community in my column that I took Deputy Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece to observe the pedestrian and truck interactions at the site where five unfortunate pedestrians were taken down by a truck mounting the curb.

The silence is deafening

May 6th, 2021 - Tony Penna

I am still trying to consolidate our March community forum “Southbank: Where to from here?”, whereby we essentially learnt that the council has not had a working plan for Southbank and, apart from the projects currently underway and those that we know are slated to start at any budget now (City Road Masterplan), there is no further vision.