By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
DANDENONG’S peak disability group has rejected claims there was adequate consultation with disabled people on the Revitalising Central Dandenong project.
Peter Fletcher, a deputy chairman of Disability Resources Centre in Dandenong, says the group had no input into the designs, which have caused an outcry from disabled pedestrians in central Dandenong.
Mr Fletcher said representatives met Greater Dandenong Council and Places Victoria with its complaints in late 2010 after the works had been completed.
The group raised issues such as uneven cobblestone pavers in Lonsdale Street car parking bays, a lack of kerbside ramps from the bays and insufficient tactile strips on footpaths leading to intersections.
Last week, Mr Fletcher showed the Weekly one of DRC’s concerns: a crossing at a bus thoroughfare at the corner of Langhorne and Lonsdale streets.
It has no traffic or pedestrian signals, only a sign ‘Pedestrians caution buses’.
Tactile strips covered a quarter of the footpath’s width – leaving visually impaired pedestrians little warning of fast-cornering buses.
He said visually impaired pedestrians were also in danger of unintentionally ramming waist-high metal drinking fountains on footpaths.
Mr Fletcher said there had been little action from the council since the group raised concerns, except for white paint strips on steps in the Langhorne Street public space.
The council had also shaved down some of the raised cobblestones around disabled parking spaces and added garden beds to raised seating areas on Lonsdale Street.
Last week, community services director Mark Doubleday said the council consulted people on the project, which met Disability Discrimination Act standards.
The council had disbanded its disability advisory committee because it wanted to consult a wider “network” of people, comprising up to 250 individuals and groups. “It has a far broader reach than an advisory committee had achieved.”
Mr Fletcher said he didn’t think the DRC was part of the network.
“We’d like to know why there’s not a disability representative group on the council and why the peak body for disability was not consulted.”
Earlier this month, a spokesman for Places Victoria – the redevelopment authority – didn’t say what prior consultation was done with disability groups.
He said the Lonsdale Street redevelopment, completed in April 2010, had been “independently verified as complying with the Disability Discrimination Act”.
He said the location, size and spacing of the disability parking was designed to meet the Road Management Act, VicRoads and council standards. After completion of the works, Places Victoria handed over responsibility for the Lonsdale Street project to the council.
