Welcome, 2023

Let us sincerely hope this can be a year of progress after so much uncertainty of years gone by. The Southbank Residents’ Association (SRA) committee has already had its first meeting and we have hit the ground running. We have much planned for the year and are looking forward to making progress with the council on a number of its Southbank projects.

The Department of Transport (DoT) has certainly hit the ground running after FINALLY starting the City Rd and Power St upgrade. You may recall the accident on that intersection about 18 months ago where five pedestrians were hospitalised. It is disappointing it has taken them this long to start these works, but even more disappointing after all the years of lobbying by SRA that nothing was done.

While this is not the perfect solution, it will go a long way to improving pedestrian safety at that intersection. Please bear with the department and the disruptions while this work is under way.

Your SRA committee will keep the pressure on the state government to find an alternate route for the placard loads. In fact, we have noticed a number of trucks using the route which are not placarded, presumably to avoid the tunnel tolls. We are also addressing this with the DoT in the hope of getting some of the trucks off those roads.

The loss of the basketball court at Boyd has certainly been noticed over the summer holiday period. Last year during the City of Melbourne’s Future Melbourne Committee meeting I suggested that it try to “loan” an empty block from a developer for temporary use as a play space, particularly with another basketball court, until the Kings Way under croft upgrade is complete as there is a basketball court scheduled with that. We have suggested to talk with the Melbourne Square developer as those empty blocks would be an ideal location in the interim. I believe discussions are forthcoming. Let’s hope this might be a temporary solution.

Going forward through 2023, you will begin to see the construction of the Beulah development on the BMW site on City Rd. This is a transformational development and will have a massive impact on the heart of Southbank and all those who reside on City Rd when it’s completed. We are in constant discussion with the developer, and we are assured traffic disruption on City Rd will be minimal. This is a five-year development, so there will be some disruptions in that time, but it will offer a lot to the community once it is finished.

As usual, I will always reach out and ask our readers to consider joining our organisation as without our members we don’t have a voice. Maybe you might like to even consider joining our committee and helping out? You can find us at southbankresidents.org.au. •