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Town centres to be cleaned at weekends

The Gosford City council has refused to allocate extra funds for maintenance, cleaning and security of the Peninsula CBDs over the weekend.

Instead, services during the week will be reduced to allow the existing funding to cover weekend services, and a levy on local businesses may be introduced to cover any extra costs, should weekday reductions not be possible.

The existing contract to provide cleaning maintenance and security services has been in operation for three months.

The specified levels of service provided for two men for eight hours each per day from Monday to Friday.

However, some isolated areas on occasions may require greater attention due to unusual circumstances such as seasonal king tides affecting drainage of low lying areas, sporting events, and general litter spills.

Council's current contractor had advised that the proposed three hours on Saturday and Sunday would be best used as follows:

Woy Woy CBD would have two men for two hours on both Saturday and Sunday morning including a full service at Pelican Park for one and a half hours each morning.

Ettalong CBD would have one man for one hour on both Saturday and Sunday.

Umina CBD would have one man for one hour on both Saturday and Sunday.

The existing contract has been accepted at $120,000 excluding GST.

With the extra weekend services, the total contract sum would therefore increase to $138,000 for the 2002 calendar year.

The extension of the present cleaning and security service has been discussed at length with members of the Peninsula Chamber of Commerce and the Peninsula CBD committees.

These groups are in favour of any extension of the service to cater for a weekend service and are aware of the cost implications to Council.

At a recent council meeting, Cr Lynne Bockholt said: "I'm not prepared to have council put an extra $30,000 towards this service. I think the costs should be shared."

Cr Craig Doyle said: "Everyone should come to the table to make a genuine partnership on this. We need to be much more pro-active."

It was pointed out that Gosford CBD is levied.

Cr Daniel Cook said: "Council is currently very generous to the Peninsula CBD businesses.

"I would hope that the Chamber of Commerce and local business will get behind a levy and support it.

"Until all CBDs are on an equal playing field, we shouldn't be putting extra funds into any one area."

Mayor Cr Robert Bell commented: "Let's open the doors of communication and make this a true partnership."

Jonathan Reichard, Council agenda EO.019, May 7