June WMRA meeting recap

Tonight’s meeting was punctual and well attended with a healthy line-up of topics to cover.

We farewelled Nicky Parker, acknowledging her years of service on the committee, her work in the Treasurer role and her monumental contribution to the 150th celebrations.  We welcomed Erin McElroy into the Treasurer role as Nicky’s replacement.

Fountain
The millennium fountain is now restored, plumbed up and running at the Edendale  Cafe.  Longer term, the Association would like the restored fountain to become part of the community sports complex or new shopping area, but for now is content that the fountain is in a ‘comfortable place’ and accessible to the public.

Community Board & Councillors
Cr Mark Alexander spoke about the 6-yearly governance structure review which is currently in a draft state.  Mark spoke about the ratio of residents-to-councillors for regions and how these may need to be re-adjusted this time around.  “It might come to whether West Melton residents prefer a closer affinity to West Melton or Darfield” he said.

Bruce Russell also spoke about next week’s volunteer awards ceremony, several grants the board had made and their particular campaign to install more road-lights on West Melton Road.

Sarah Walters touched briefly on several long term roading projects including a fly-over rail crossing at Rolleston (circa. 2022), road widening projects and the development of the Weedons Ross Road bridge & intersection (circa. 2018).  The new 2200m2 Rolleston Library to replace the existing 300m2 facility was brought up by Mark, currently planned for 2019.

Well done Mark & Sarah on completing the LTP, we appreciate how much work this has been for you and your staff.

Corridor management plan
We discussed this at length, recapping the outcomes from the last meeting, specifically the likelihood of a light-controlled, road-level crossing being installed on SH73 near to the existing Community Centre and the underpass connection between Gainsborough & Wilfield being separate and still undecided.  Frustration was aired at the community being unable to be consulted or contribute to the underpass decision.

ANZAC Day
We celebrated the success of last April’s inaugural West Melton ANZAC day ceremony, particularly the great job Bruce Russell did as the master of ceremonies and Sarah Beattie with the morning tea.  We were thrilled by the response of the community and took the opportunity to recap and review some changes we could make for the future.  Consensus was that this should become a regular event that the residents association should run.

The next WMRA meeting is scheduled for Wednesday August 12.  See you there!