Stay safe, Southbank

What a disappointing month August will be with stage 4 lockdowns.

While unfortunate, in my opinion and probably the opinion of most, this is certainly needed.

While we haven’t had the devastating exponential growth, nevertheless the numbers have still been too high.

We are not in a great position and I can only see that this must be the way forward.

It was most disappointing to hear of the 25 per cent of positive cases that were not at home when the authorities door knocked. We must listen to the authorities and take this seriously.

Southbank is not immune. The last set of postcode cases that I saw was showing 60 positive cases are in Southbank, however I believe any hotel quarantine cases are included in the statistics and there is a high possibly many of those 60 could be in the Crown hotels which have been used for returning quarantine travellers.

Last month we saw first-hand the risks in high-rise living with the hard lockdown of the social housing towers.

While there is a heightened risk in social housing towers owing to the dynamics of their space, there are still many similarities.

As mentioned in my June column, because 83 per cent of our electorate is high-density apartment living, the Lord Mayor Sally Capp moved a motion at the council’s Future Melbourne Committee (FMC) meeting in June requesting council take more interest in the communication and interpretation we are all receiving with regard to how we can better manage our buildings.

Southbank Residents’ Association (SRA) made a submission in support of this motion and through July we participated in a number of round table discussions (via Zoom) with many other representatives of community groups across our municipality to discuss and share our experiences and challenges.

In mid-July, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) released a document specifically on this topic – Apartments and Multi-Dwelling Properties – to help guide buildings with how to manage their shared spaces.

I urge everyone to read this document as it has a lot of helpful information. A copy can be found on the SRA website: southbankresidents.org.au.

The SRA annual general meeting (AGM) date has been confirmed as Wednesday, August 19, and, as expected, this will be held via Zoom.

If you are wanting to join our volunteer committee and assist us with representing the interests of Southbank, we would certainly welcome your interest.

It’s a great opportunity to give back to your committee and also meet a great bunch of like-minded residents.

All our committee members, past and present, have always found it a rewarding experience.

If you would like to nominate or attend our AGM, please send us an email with your interest so we can put you on the email with the Zoom link for the meeting.

We can be reached at [email protected]. Please stay safe. I am hoping my September column will be talking about the end of the lockdown that will hopefully be scheduled by that time •