Chelsea • Mordialloc • Mentone
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Wednesday 29 October 2014
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Big crowd MORE than 1000 people attended Patterson River CFA’s Open Day this month. There were giveaways for children, balloons, uniform displays, and memorabilia, including a hats and badges display at the brigade’s McLeod Rd base in Carrum. Children checked out fire trucks on display and were enthralled by fire-fighting demonstrations. Volunteer Rob Allen said the open day aimed to get the community involved “so people know what we do and how the station works. “We also want to give back to the community, to show residents our equipment, personnel, and how we can help them in the event of an emergency.” The station has 80 volunteer and three fulltime firefighters and operates around the clock. Around 40 volunteers are involved in fighting fires while the others do odd jobs. Patterson River brigade members were called out to emergencies 768 times in 12 months, including 326 calls where they were the first to respond and 442 call outs to support other brigades. Fireys family: Patterson River CFA brigade member Rob Prideaux with grandson Hayden Finkelde at the brigade’s open day. Picture: Gary Sissons
Open space ‘invader’ Neil Walker neil@baysidenews.com.au PLANS to build an aged care home on land at Collins St in Mentone have come under fire from some residents and Kingston councillors keen to see the area used as open public space instead. Councillors at Monday evening’s meeting voted to push ahead with plans to sell the former depot in Collins St to an aged care provider amid heated debate about the timing of the sale process.
Cr Rosemary West said Kingston CEO John Nevins had previously said any sale would not take place until early next year, but there now seems to be some urgency selling the land. “The CEO dropped a bombshell by bringing forward the motion to commence a process for the sale of Collins St,” Cr West said. “Suddenly … councillors were told ‘Oh, by the way, we’re going to have a motion to sell the Collins St site next week’, so we only got a week’s notice.” Cr West said the community was be-
ing denied the opportunity to debate the best use of the Collins St site. Several Mentone residents have contacted The News in recent weeks to express their preference for the site to become public open space. “We shouldn’t be undertaking a process to sell the site until we know there is an aged care provider willing ... to take over four sites and manage them until they get around to building a giant three-storey facility next to the railway line,” Cr West said. Any aged care provider intending to build an aged care facility at Col-
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ness case for putting in an expression of interest. He said council had “clearly announced its intention for the Collins St site [to be used] for aged care” last year. “It’s not new ... this argument is not about open space, it’s about providing quality of life for a particular group of people at the end of their life,” he said. “Sometimes we can’t debate with our community. Aged care is a very sensitive issue that you can’t go out and debate.” Continued Page 8
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lins St must manage council’s existing care homes at Nixon House in Mordialloc, Northcliffe Lodge in Edithvale and Corben House in Mentone in the interim. The provider would also have to take over the running of the community-managed Mordialloc Community Nursing Home which has approached council for help over financial difficulties. Cr Ron Brownlees said “we have to open the books” now to give commercial and not-for-profit aged care providers a chance to assess the busi-
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