Re-Think EastLink Meeting - Sept 11

Our friends at 'Re-think EastLink' are inviting everyone to a meeting at the Gidgegannup Agricultural Hall on Toodyay Rd, 10am tomorrow, Saturday Sept 11.

Main Roads will be up there talking about its Perth to Adelaide national freight highway - which goes up Toodyay Rd, and through Gidgy. This highway (previously called the Orange Route), will be a carbon copy of the massive concrete expanse of NorthLink.

EastLink will cut a swathe of destruction through the Hills' natural environment and forever impact small Hills' communities through to Northam. If you have any concerns about EastLink, go along tomorrow and ask the builders some questions...

Bushfire Inquiry Deadline

24th Sept Inquiry Deadline

It took the State Government more than 6 months to call the Wooroloo Bushfire Inquiry - but we only have until Sept 24 to get submissions in - it’s time to get moving!

The Inquiry will examine - ‘the bushfire response, fuel management, mitigation activities and communications.‘

Save Perth Hills will make a submission on the need for safer Planning and Development in and around Extreme Bushfire Zones.

Incredibly, ‘Planning and Development’ is not an official agenda item - (surely, prevention is better than cure?)... but there’s capacity to offer up whatever YOU feel is important.

These terrible catastrophes always offer lessons, but learnings can only happen if communities offer feedback.

You can upload videos or photos to support your points, and you can write as much or as little as you want.

Contact us (email or FB) if you have any questions.

And CC your submission to us if you like - saveperthhillsinc@gmail.com

It’d be great to get a feel for where bushfire communities like ours, think we need to head.

https://www.wa.gov.au/.../independent-review-of-the-2021...

Bushfire Inquiry Announced

https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/.../Inquiry-into...

Finally... an inquiry into Perth Hills’ worst bushfire catastrophe.

We’re relieved - on behalf of our affected community members, that some closure might result.

But...

We’re dismayed ‘Planning’ is NOT on the 'agenda' (Terms of Reference).

We lobbied local member, Matthew Hughes, Emergency Services Minister Reece Whitby, and Premier McGowan, hard, for Planning to be included.

Plans like $atterley’s dangerous North $toneville have no place in extreme bushfire zones. But still, they can be brought to the table.

So, what a missed opportunity to deny PLANNING a seat at that table - with its potential to reduce, even AVOID, some of the terrible outcomes bushfires can bring.

The fact developers can even present plans to cram thousands into recognised bushfire zones tells us WA is failing bushfire prone communities.

Local Federal member Ken Wyatt - Hasluck, secured Planning on the National 2020 Summer of Fires Royal Commission, recognising safer planning can help to save lives - and homes, in bushfires.

This inquiry, hopefully, will offer lessons in better bushfire response. And that’s incredibly important for us all.

But we must also respond BEFORE bushfires begin, and that involves, without doubt, safer - not dangerous planning in our bushfire-prone zones.