Huge turnout for community forum

March, 2021 was the month where Southbank Residents’ Association (SRA) held its largest ever event.

As I wrote about last month and the marketing we had done, the Southbank Community Forum – “Southbank: Where to from here?” attracted more than 150 passionate residents and overall has been considered a resounding success.

A success insofar that what we learnt from the council is that there really hasn’t been a “plan” for Southbank and moreover there actually isn’t a current “plan” for Southbank.

The Southbank Structure Plan – a 30-year plan for Southbank, which has always been spruiked as the “Southbank plan” – was clearly not a living document and has failed to achieve many of its benchmarks over the past 11 years.

The limited responses from the council directors and deputy CEO left the audience with no doubt that this plan was not what the council is basing their planning on.

My reading of the responses also appeared to have been a surprise to the Lord Mayor Sally Capp and Deputy Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece. It was an awakening for them.

We are heartened to receive the Lord Mayor’s “thank you for the reset” in her summary. But what exactly this will mean for Southbank only time will tell.

A massive highlight of the evening was the official launch of the history of SRA’s first 20 years (we turn 23 this month – happy birthday to us!). As you can see, it was several years in the making and the author, and ex-committee member, Lynne Lumsden, has done a tremendous job with researching, compiling and writing the history.

Southbank will forever be thankful to Lynne for this important piece of work.

I commend all residents of Southbank to have a read, you will be truly surprised with what SRA has achieved for our community during this time.

The book is available in the Boyd library or if you would like your very own copy, then please send us an email and we will arrange something: [email protected].

While we are celebrating the history of SRA, sadly, Joe Bagnara, one of the main contributors to the organisation as president from 2003 to 2011, passed away at the end of February aged 88 years.

Joe was a passionate spokesperson for Southbank and he commanded the respect from all councillors during his time.

In 2017 SRA honoured Joe with life membership. Joe’s contributions to Southbank and SRA are certainly worth celebrating and won’t be forgotten.

Our condolences to his family, whom I only spoke to a few days prior to his passing.

We are starting to plan for our annual general meeting (AGM). If you were looking for a challenge and would like to give back to your community, then maybe you might like to consider joining our committee?

Please reach out if you think this might be of interest to you.

Finally, if you are not a member of SRA, and would like to keep abreast of our involvement with the community, then we would certainly welcome your support.

Membership is only $10/year and your support helps us to maintain our voice on Southbank issues. You can join via our Facebook page – southbankresidents – or our website southbankresidents.org.au •