Trucks hit shops

By Sarah Schwager
TWO shops in Noble Park have been damaged after a truck scraped their awnings on Saturday the fifth incident in the past two months.
Owners of the two shops, Noble Men’s Hairdressing and Noble Park Dry Cleaners on Frank Street, felt their buildings shake as trucks in the loading bay outside the shops ripped metal off the solid awning.
Noble Men’s Hairdressing coowner Tony Imbriano said the problem started after the City of Greater Dandenong carried out roadworks.
The kerb outside the two shops was brought back nearly two metres after a traffic island was installed in the middle of Frank Street, near Douglas Street.
Mr Imbriano said moving the kerb had brought the overhead in line with the side of the road.
“They should’ve left it the way it was. There were never any problems before,” he said.
Mr Imbriano said the awning could become a liability if trucks kept hitting it.
He said the last time a truck scraped the awning, it ripped like a sardine can, knocking one of the shop signs.
“The sign was hanging by a thread. It’s going to kill someone,” he said.
“It’s also very loud inside the shop. You think the roof’s going to fall down.”
Noble Park Dry Cleaners’ Tracey Haeffner said the trucks had caused more damage than just the awning.
Ms Haeffner said a leak had begun just inside the shop’s outer wall after the roadworks.
“When the trucks hit, it must be knocking the roof into the internal guttering system,” she said.
Mr Imbriano said a leak had also appeared above their front door that had never been there before.
He said while something definitely needed to be done to fix the problem, he could not understand why the kerb had been moved in the first place.
“I told them before they’d done it,” he said.
“These guys are supposed to be engineers. They don’t look up. It’s a joke.”
Mr Imbriano said the money spent on changing the road should have been spent on other things.
He said it was the council’s responsibility to fix the problem but so far they had not replied to his latest requests.
“It could be a liability if it falls down. It shouldn’t be the truck drivers’ responsibility,” he said.
But City of Greater Dandenong engineer, Danny Kah, said plans were already underway to fix the problem.
“We’re going to change the loading bay arrangements,” Mr Kah said.
He said a onehour parking spot would replace the loading bay in front of the hairdressers so only cars could park there that could not hit the awning.
Mr Kah said he was sure it would fix the problem, as the loading bay would be moved about one or two car spaces from where it is now. “Generally, it is trucks that are coming into the loading bay that cause the problem,” he said.
He said he did not think trucks would hit the awning after the loading bay was moved as there was still plenty of room for them to turn.
“It’s when the trucks come right into the kerb that it’s a problem,” Mr Kah said.
“There’s a slope in the kerb which causes the trucks to slant.”
He said council had already ordered the new parking signs and plans were being made to reline the yellow loading bay markers on the road.
Mr Imbriano said changing the loading zone would fix the problem to an extent but trucks coming around the corner could still hit the awning.
“Trucks hit it all the time, they scrape it all the time,” he said.
Ms Haeffner said the problem with the awning had become a bit of a Catch 22.
“What can you do?” she said.
“If we fix the roof, it will happen again. It doesn’t seem worth fixing.”