By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
GREATER Dandenong Council has launched a review into a footpath that climbs a mound of soil in Noble Park.
In last week’s Journal, Cr Maria Sampey said the “stuffed up” $60,000 project had left pedestrians, including those at a nearby residential care home, struggling to push wheelchairs up the crest at the end of Racecourse Road.
The council said the mound was designed to deter rat-running drivers on Corrigan Road cutting through to Princes Highway.
Chief executive John Bennie revealed last Tuesday that unbeknown to council managers, wooden bollards had been placed in front of the mound on April 5, encircling Racecourse Road’s cul-de-sac.
“We need to know why bollards were put in and management was not aware,” Mr Bennie said.
Last week, he launched a review into the details and costs of the project, and why there was demand for the footpath.
Mr Bennie said the footpath complied with design standards but the council would investigate the cost of reconstructing the mound.
At last week’s council meeting, engineering services director Bruce Rendall — who at that stage did not know of the bollards — said the mound, which had deterred rat-running for 25 years, would remain in place.
The mound appears visibly higher than in a Google street-view map of the site in December 2009. In that image, an unsealed walking track — in lieu of the recently completed footpath — passes beside it.
Cr Sampey publicly challenged Mr Bennie and Mr Rendall to push a person in a wheelchair up the “stuffed up” footpath to “see how hard it is”.
“I just want to see the footpath done properly.” She questioned the need for the mound, now that bollards were unwittingly installed.
“If the mound worked against rat-running, why were bollards put in? This saga used to be a short story, now it’s becoming a novel.”
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