John’s battle to maintain Turpentine St park

Wyoming resident John Gordon is embroiled in a battle with Central Coast Council over the ongoing maintenance of a strip of Council-owned land in Turpentine St.

He says Council created a small park many years ago when it cut off the start of the street, with the area mowed and cleared of tree debris on a regular basis – about every three weeks in Summer and about six weeks in Winter.

“This has stopped and Council now advises that they will only attend to the area on a 16-week rotation,” he said.

“I have asked Council to clean the area up as promised when they cut the road off but no help from them.

“I cut two mower runs along the boundary on my side of the road and trim the edges, but at the age of 81 I can no longer attend to the Council area.”

Gordon said the major concern was that the long grasses caused a traffic hazard, with cars approaching the T intersection not having a clear view of traffic coming from either left or right.

“Also as the grass grows out of control and starts to cover the footpath through the middle of the parkland it is a hazard to the pedestrians who try to cross over the road at that point,” he said.

“Council promised (verbally) at the time of cutting off the through road that they would maintain it on a regular basis.

“We planted three trees in the area to make it more than a grass park.”

Council says the area in question is designated as a “roadside nature strip”, not a park, and so is mowed every 16 weeks – differing from a park or reserve space.

“The last mowing of this roadside nature strip was on October 24, in line with similar roadside nature strips in the region,” a spokesperson said.

“The next scheduled servicing of this area February 24, weather permitting.

“Council is responsible for the maintenance of an enormous area throughout the Central Coast, thus implements a maintenance schedule focusing on priorities and key community usage.

“This schedule prioritises mowing work in order of: safety (roadsides), playability (sportsgrounds) and usability (parks/playgrounds), with amenity maintenance being a lower priority for roadside nature strips.

“Council only undertakes works outside of the scheduled maintenance period when it is considered dangerous and/or affecting the line of sight for both pedestrians and motorist traffic.”

But Gordon said a very large area with trees bounded by three roads could hardly be called a nature strip.

“The only nature strip is between the footpath and our boundary,” he said.

Following an approach to Council for comment by Coast Community News, the area was mowed on February 3, three weeks ahead of its scheduled February 24 service.