by Sahar Foladi
Major concerns have been raised at a council meeting about Greater Dandenong’s heatwave preparedness.
Councillor Rhonda Garad raised issues on Monday 25 September such as the lack of bus shelters in the Keysborough South ward, particularly for the elderly.
“We’re encouraging people to use the bus but there’s no bus shelter in my ward.
“We’re expecting them to be standing for up to an hour waiting for the next bus in an exposed situation, which is a significant problem.
“No protection, nothing for residents in Keysborough South,” she said.
Craig Cinquegrana, manager of city improvement at the council, said the matter needs to be raised with Department of Transport and Planning.
“Extreme heat events will be an issue at bus stops around Victoria and DTP would need to consider this as part of bus reform and climate change strategies.
“Council continues to investigate longer term solutions to reduce the impact of these extreme events and that maybe though increased planting to provide shade.”
While Department of Transport and Planning has the responsibility to provide the bus stop infrastructure, council has signed a memorandum to transfer the majority of the council’s bus shelters to DTP by the end of 2025.
That’s also when the current contract supplier expires.
Chief executive Jacqui Weatherill added that she’ll correspond with the regional director of DTP in one of her “regular meetings.”
“I agree, it’s a concern and DTP need to start allocate funds forward.”
While it may be too late to plant trees to provide shade for this summer, Ms Weatherill said a report will be prepared on how to “improve the situation.”
Ms Weatherill says the threat is even greater here in Greater Dandenong where the “heat is more pronounced.”
“Heatwaves are an ever-increasing threat and they’re one of our threats here in particularly because we don’t have the level of tree canopy compared to some municipalities in Victoria.”
The council are focused on the communication of “high quality information” to help the community prepare and ensure the CALD communities receive the vital messages.
“If we know that heatwave period is coming up and it’s been announced by Bureau of Meteorology, we’ll ensure to pass that through all our channels.
“That includes, ensuring our community care orders are given the information and we have major screens through our municipality with educational information,” she said.
“There are layers of strategy to get the messages out and work with our community to ensure that they’re prepared, we’ll continue to do that.”
The council has acknowledged that not everyone can be helped during the highly difficult time of heatwave, so preparing them in advance is better.
“If you’re prepared, you’re much more ready when we have a heatwave than others if it’s day three and 42 degrees again and they’re struggling with the heat with no sense of how to deal with it.
“We wanted to engage with our community, to educate them and for them to be part of our planning and we realised that we can’t help everyone during heatwave, but we can help them to be prepared,” Ms Weatherill said.
Greater Dandenong took a leading role by staging the “Heatwave Preparedness” forum held on Tuesday 19 September at the Drum Theatre.
The forum hosted community organisations, businesses, and at least 15 other councils as far away as Bendigo.
Since the event, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has declared El Nino, a weather pattern that occurs every two to seven years due to wind patterns in the Pacific Ocean which is known to result in increased temperatures worldwide.
As reported previously by Star Journal, as a result of El Nino, Australia is expected to swelter under a rise in temperatures this summer. A continuous increase in global temperatures for the next nine to 12 months is forecast.
