Do Gooders Doing Harm in Chippo
Ah, this day; such a beauty of sun, clear light and, here and there, drops of silence.
But.
The local council did some works to some local streets in Chippendale; Buckland, Myrtle and Meagher Streets. The aim the council and it’s consultants gave themselves was to make the streets more attractive for citizens, safer for pedestrians and to clean up stormwater entering Sydney Harbour, but not to make the car a guest on our streets.
Nothing was to be done for birds, insects and little critters in the ground which help to grow soil, trees, plants and sustain us; to increase biodiversity. And there are other defects, but let’s discuss here, on this lovely sunny day, something which has an element of farce and laughter to it.
The failure to design for, understand and get it right with stormwater.
After $1.8 million of our rates money and some rainfalls it’s possible to identify some design defects in some of the new works with the self-serving titles of ‘water sensitive urban design’, and ‘raingardens’.
We have here a classic case of Do Gooders seeking to do good, actually doing harm.
It’s a natural reaction to turn up the volume of our inner sceptic when folks give themselves favourable titles. Who could dare to criticise someone who, for example, is the author of a ‘water sensitive urban design’? Surely, such a person sits on the right hand of the gods. Particularly when they bless one’s community with a ‘raingarden’. And that’s what we have here, according to the consultants and the council; ‘water sensitive urban design’, and ‘raingardens’.
Still, the urge in this citizen, is not to fall to our knees in the presence of such works and blessings.
It is, simply, to look, ask questions and ask some more.
Yesterday I photographed a truck in Myrtle Street, roaring away, sucking up gravel which has been washed into a large concrete pit in a ‘raingarden’.
A couple of days before I photographed bags put down where water enters another raingarden to slow down the stormwater entering the raingarden.
How much energy is required and who pays for these delightful after thoughts to the incompetent designs foisted on us is also something not to discuss here; later, perhaps.
We can merely speculate at the true impacts of these “water sensitive’ works on our lovely but torn mother Earth.
And we can enjoy the photos.
May the truck suckers and the bagmen be with you as they are with our streets,
Michael
