After lobbying by IWBC during the recent Council elections the Council, through a motion by Cr Drury and other supportive Councillors, agreed to set up a Bicycle Working Group, to take the place of the Bicycle Advisory Committee on the old Leichhardt Council. It isn’t a Council Committee, that is it won’t report directly to Councillors at Council Meetings, but minutes will be taken and available to Councillors through a bi-monthly “Local Democracy” report. The Working group is open to anyone to attend, and relevant staff will provide reports and answer questions.
Terms of reference
“The Group is constituted as a Working Group and not a Committee of
Council, minutes of each meeting will not be presented to a Council
Meeting for formal adoption. Rather updates from Working Groups would be
provided to Council as part of a bi-monthly Local Democracy report.
The Group can request Councillors to bring matters before Council by way of
Councillor Notice of Motion process.
Working Group participants can request agenda items at meetings or through the
Group Manager Roads,Traffic & Stormwater.”
The first meeting was held on June 16,2018.
Reports were given on the status of bicycle projects including
LR03- Livingstone Rd
LR07 – St Peters Station to Tempe Station
LR16 – Addison Rd
LR18 – Dulwich Hill Station to Marrickville Station
RR02 – Parramatta Rd to Marrickville Park
RR07 – Longport St, Petersham to King St, Newtown
and Lilyfield Road cycleway
by Manager of Transport Infrastructure Predrag Gulelj, and an overview of transport planning and the aims of Council to promote Active Transport (walking, cycling, public transport) was given by Ken Welsh, Senior Transport Planner, worth a read, along with the Integrated transport Strategy 2016 for the former Leichhardt Council.
A worrying aspect of the amalgamation is the need for the new council to develop new Transport Plans, tying together plans from the three former councils. This will take 2 to 3 years (see Ken’s timeline in his presentation) and they said the new Inner West Bike Plan will have to wait until that is done. I am hoping it can be done in conjunction or some other means found to keep projects coming through for implementation. Ashfield Council never had a bike plan so one is urgently needed so that RMS will provide funding- a necessary condition.
Ken Welsh- presentation on Strategic Planning Context
Predrag Gulej- Projects Update -21.6.18
Minutes are available from the Council Working group web site link.