Gas prices query
THIS is an open letter to the Karridale Roadhouse and Gull Witchcliffe regarding their current auto LPG price. Both outlets put their auto gas prices up in March in line with an increase in the Saudi Aramco contract price, the benchmark used to set world gas prices.
We are now nine days into May and both servos are still charging the March price, at time of going to press, despite the contract price dropping by about 12 per cent on April 1 and about 15 per cent on May 1. Gas is currently cheaper in Kalgoorlie and Geraldton than Karridale and Witchy.
Both servos are low-volume LPG sellers so there is a price lag when prices move either up or down, but surely they’ve had a delivery since April 1.
Clive Ducat, Margaret River
Black spot warning
I WRITE in response to yet another car accident at the Osmington Rd/ Bussell Hwy junction with my concerns that this lethal bit of road will, someday, claim lives.
Less than a year ago my partner was returning from work in Busselton when she was required to stop to assist a family in a car that had failed to negotiate the steep and largely unsigned stop at the bottom of Osmington Road. It was only a miracle that no one died, though emergency services were required and our over-burdened hospitals were required to respond - which they did magnificently.
The potential lethality of this road could be significantly reduced if rumble strips and proper signage - the current stop sign is small and often covered by branches - similar to the junction of Wallcliffe Rd and Caves Rd, were installed.
I traverse that road on a daily basis in both a private and public capacity, driving tour buses and I can only see this section of the road as a tragedy waiting to happen. Please Main Roads and Margaret River Shire do something now! The consolation of 20/20 hindsight is no consolation at all!
Joe Harding, Margaret River
Traffic management
FOR the last 20 years, traffic management improvements in the Margaret River town centre have been deferred until a bypass is in place. In 2004, Council consolidated planning for the East Margaret River Structure Plan that included a bypass alignment costed at less than $20m.
The Harrison, Taylor, Colyer council elected in 2005 initiated plans for a grand bypass, amongst other grand plans, that is now being costed at $70m. The truck traffic through town does not warrant a bypass, according to Main Roads standards, at the moment … and probably never will warrant a $70+m bypass.
If Margaret River actually needs a new industrial area, which I doubt, then that can use the existing roads for the next 20 years. Building part of the southern section of a bypass now is an absurd waste of our money. Only the northern section of the bypass is actually needed to take trucks out of the main street.
Nannup is about to spend $3m on their main street including traffic management improvements. Like Margaret River, they have a highway passing through their town centre and truck traffic similar to ours. They are constrained by the same Main Roads standards that apply to Bussell Highway. So why can’t we get similar attention for our main street?
Council, please stop wasting our funds on grand plans for some future supertown and start addressing the real issues facing the existing town.
The priority needs to be for some proper traffic management and streetscape improvements … and a properly innovative use of the Old Settlement land.
The current proposal, to try to revive such a prime site based around a blacksmith’s shop is pathetic. Simply advertising it for EoI is only repeating the situation that led to its decay …and its failure to service the needs of the community and the tourist industry for the past 20 years. The Old Settlement site needs to be incorporated into an overall town centre plan to link the town centre to its namesake.
Substance, not more marketing or bypass and supertowns nonsense, is needed to revive the credibility of Margaret River … both for the community and the iconic brand value.
Linton Hodsdon, Margaret River
ANZAC Day sacred
I REALLY don’t know what you were thinking about to include the cartoon, part 6 of the Mail, April 25.
As the sole survivor of an RAF Bomber crew lost on a Berlin raid in 1941 and rescued by the wrong side into nearly four years of captivity, and though maybe not an ANZAC, I take ANZAC Day to be very sacred.
To me it is a reminder of the four crew members I lost. I am quite sure that all ex-servicemen who have lost mates in battle think likewise.
Maybe there is some truth in what the cartoonist said – we can’t win them all but we did win the big ones that really mattered, WWI and WWII.
Had we not won my conflagration, WWII, I would still be a POW rebuilding the cities we of Bomber Command had knocked down.
That was a promise Hitler made to us. All Europe would now be speaking German and Australia Japanese.
For such a cartoon to appear on ANZAC Day is a direct insult to all those servicemen who gave their all, in whatever theatre of war so that we could continue to speak English, and live like we do in freedom. Personally, I am disgusted.
Brian Walley, pilot of 51 Squadron, Bomber Command, now living at Mirrambeena Lodge, Margaret River
Editor’s note:
I’m sorry the ANZAC Day cartoon upset you Brian, it was not meant to be disrespectful to those who served or the deeds they accomplished. Baz was expressing a concern there is a risk the true meaning of ANZAC Day could become another lost cause, with the renewed interest in the day focussed so heavily on what services and where our political leaders will attend, and commercial aspects like the AFL game, rather than the day itself.
Mal Gill
