Councillor’s Column: Cr Ron Nelson from the City of Greater Geelong

Looking after student safety
As the population grows and new schools open in Armstrong Creek, it’s absolutely crucial that all students can get to school safely.
School crossing supervisors do a wonderful job helping schoolchildren across busy roads, and the Greater Geelong council proudly employs more than 200 of them across the region.
To do this, we receive funding help from the state government – but only once we can provide traffic and pedestrian data to show that a road is busy enough to warrant a supervised crossing.
This led to some uncertainty for new schools St Catherine of Siena (on Warralily Boulevard, Armstrong Creek) and Mirripoa Primary School (on Unity Drive, Mount Duneed) in the lead-up to their opening.
Very reasonably, the principals and parents at these schools wanted supervised crossings in place for term one of the 2020 school year.
But because accurate traffic and pedestrian counts required for state government funding couldn’t be carried out until after the schools opened, it was looking like both would be forced to wait.
Pleasingly, my fellow councillors unanimously supported me when I proposed we step in and fully fund crossing supervisors at both locations until the state funding is made available.
All councillors agreed that children’s safety is too important to risk, and as a result we now have supervised crossings at both locations.
In the case of Mirripoa PS, the supervisor is working at the traffic lights on the corner of Unity and Sovereign Drives.
The council has also decided to investigate building a dedicated pedestrian crossing closer to the school – near the corner of Armstrong Boulevard and Unity Drive.
This would cost around $115,000 and would need to be funded in our 2020-21 budget.

Armstrong Creek Sharks
It’s amazing to see community spirit building in Armstrong Creek through the newly established sporting clubs, which are quickly growing in numbers and strength.
I was rapt to get an invite to the Armstrong Creek Sharks football/netball ‘come and try’ day on Sunday morning.
The club is based at the new council-built pavilion on Central Boulevard, with footy grounds and netball courts built by developers Warralily.
The Sharks are looking to field junior football teams from under-9s up to under-13s this season as well as Auskick, plus ‘Net Set Go’ for young netballers and potentially under-11s and under-13s teams.
If you have children who’d like to play, there’s still time to register before the season starts – head to armstrongcreekfc.com.au.
Carn the Sharks!

Importance of good recycling
The latest figures given to us by our recycling provider Cleanaway unfortunately don’t make great reading.
At the moment, around 35 per cent of material being placed in our yellow bins can’t be recycled, meaning it ends up in landfill.
I know our community is passionate about recycling and wants to do the right thing, so it’s a matter of making sure we’re all aware of what can and can’t be placed in yellow bins.
Soft plastic bags are the major issue – they can’t be recycled, so the main thing to remember is not to bag your recyclables before putting them in the yellow bin.
You can drop off soft plastics at special recycling stations at supermarkets, but the yellow bin is only for rigid plastics, glass, aluminium, clean paper and cardboard.
The City of Greater Geelong has launched an inspection program where staff will observe the material in yellow bins as it gets tipped into the truck.
Bins that have a high level of non-recyclable material will get a sticker outlining what can and can’t go in.
Our staff are also working on further education to help everyone gain a clearer understanding.
Thanks to everyone for your efforts in this area – together I’m sure we can reduce that 35 per cent figure significantly over the coming months.

Geelong Design Week – program out now
The City of Greater Geelong is presenting the first ever Geelong Design Week between 19 and 29 March.
There’ll be more than 80 events, exhibitions, workshops and tours to experience, featuring design experts from our region and around the world.
Go to geelongdesignweek.com.au to see what’s on offer and get your tickets. Many of the events are free.

Cr Ron Nelson
Kardinia Ward, City of Greater Geelong