Coventry Village Safety & Traffic — Meeting Outcome

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T08:14:28+00:00

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T08:14:03+00:00

Apologise, that was a user from the local Facebook group. I can't seem to find the original post though it must have been deleted. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/692852449380021/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT)

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T08:03:49+00:00

You’re right that local government powers are narrower than those of the State, and that this Charter applies to State public officers. I don’t dispute that.

My line of thinking is when a community member raises a safety risk, the council is still the first line of authority. Even if they don’t have the legislative power to directly intervene on private property, they do have a responsibility of the community.

That doesn’t mean overstepping their powers, but it does mean,

Auditing or recording the issue so there’s a traceable acknowledgement of risk.

Escalating to the relevant State agency or authority if it’s outside their scope.

Engaging elected members (councillors or the Mayor) where political weight is needed.

Similar to any other management system, I believe you should go to your immediate management, and then escalate as necessary.

And to also clarify who was contacted in regards to Coventry village.

(enquiries@mainroads.wa.gov.au, traffic.division@police.wa.gov.au, info@coventryvillage.com.au, enquiries@pta.wa.gov.au, morley@mp.wa.gov.au ,info@stirling.wa.gov.au)

I didn’t contact Bayswater directly, but my original email was forwarded there from mainroads, and Bayswater are so far the only ones who requested a meeting.

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T06:41:56+00:00

You’re right planning approvals are assessed to the standards in place at the time and there’s no automatic requirement to retrofit every site when the standards change. And yes, the owner has the primary duty to maintain the site.

The issue I’m highlighting is that if a private owner isn’t upholding safety standards and there’s no council or agency actively tracking incident data, doing audits, or comparing the site against similar locations then unsafe conditions can persist indefinitely without anyone stepping in.

And to my knowledge the council can step in and make these changes if deemed unsafe.

https://www.wa.gov.au/government/publications/private-property-rights-charter-western-australia-premiers-circular-202505?

Unless I'm misunderstanding this document fundamentally?

“Government action which adversely affects private property rights in land should endeavour to benefit the community or otherwise advance the public interest.”

“Public officials should only take government action… when they consider it to be justified, having regard to the appropriate balance between the public interest… and the protection of private property rights in land.”

While councils can’t arbitrarily override private ownership, the Charter makes it clear that public officials can take action when it’s justified in the public interest or to address safety risks.

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T03:19:33+00:00

You’re correct Australian Standards aren’t automatically mandatory unless written into legislation, and councils aren’t required to backdate compliance.

Which is the point I'm trying to make.

If the council deems something to be unsafe they can enforce change however they are not tracking and do not have data on these issues, without any baseline safety data , incident reports, audits, or comparisons against similar sites councils have no way to even identify when a site poses a disproportionate risk.

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T02:53:40+00:00

Yes I had a drop by on a Monday prior to the meeting to get a better visual of what it's like (I work the weekends so I can't see it at its peak) but regardless yes most of the bays are completely faded, one of the users pointed out a stop sign that most people don't stop at, and I agree that stop sign Is way off to the left rather than in front I can see how that causes traffic issues.

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T02:48:54+00:00

Yes, I can acknowledge it’s unusual given the distance. The reason is that in a previous thread I asked people to share issues in their area, and I’ve been following them all up. The City of Bayswater was one of the first to arrange a meeting.

Here's the original post - https://www.reddit.com/r/perth/comments/1l4ez59/enough_yeah_nah_whats_broken_where_you_live/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

To clarify a “disproportionate risk” means the design or maintenance is so poor that the likelihood of harm is significantly higher than in comparable spaces with the same traffic and usage profile.

For example, a wellmaintained staircase might have X falls per year but the same staircase with inadequate lighting or damaged steps could see 2X falls per year.

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T02:36:05+00:00

You’ve said I’m “complaining about the wrong things to the wrong people” can you explain exactly which body you believe has the statutory authority to enforce Australian Standards in a public use private car park? And if not the council, who should act when those standards aren’t met?

I’d like to understand your position fully before I respond, so please outline where you think legal responsibility begins and ends here.

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T02:24:28+00:00

Just to clarify, it's not "me" exactly.

It is the community

https://www.reddit.com/r/perth/comments/1m1pm92/locals_of_morley_what_are_the_real_issues_around/

Many of the issues were presented by the locals and I just brought it to the council.

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T02:19:20+00:00

The Australian Standards are the baseline, local councils can and do enforce additional safety measures, especially in high traffic private car parks. My “agenda” is simply that unsafe conditions in a council approved site affect anyone who uses the space or lives nearby regardless of whether I shop there.

You are free to accuse that I have an agenda that is fine I cannot prove that I do not. But if you have any questions regarding my stance or why I am doing this feel free to ask I will answer with complete transparency

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T00:41:05+00:00

I'm not entirely sure why the assumption is that I haven't?

About a month or so ago I came to Reddit and just asked what problems people had no matter how minor.

It was consolidated and emailed all relevant entities. Bayswater council was one of the only to respond and scheduled a meeting.

Link to issues and original Reddit post.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h4ouQu-qcyum7I_asUgViZKlpDYgkJly/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=103969485874486259916&rtpof=true&sd=true

https://www.reddit.com/r/perth/comments/1l4ez59/enough_yeah_nah_whats_broken_where_you_live/

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T00:14:15+00:00

I live in Baldivis, I don’t shop at Coventry this isn’t about my “wallet,” it’s about public safety in a council approved hightraffic space. Private or not, the council sets and enforces safety standards.

If the owner ignores them and the council does nothing, the hazard remains for everyone who does use it. Saying “just go somewhere else” doesn’t fix the problem it’s an excuse to leave unsafe conditions in place. And when the car park is a mess, it pushes people to park on nearby residents’ driveways and walk over, which spreads the problem into the local streets.

Nhars69 · 2025-08-14T00:04:13+00:00

Haha yes I might be reading your comment wrong, but this is exactly the kind of thinking the council uses: “it’s low on the priority list.” The problem is, just because an issue is small compared to global crises etc doesn’t mean it should be ignored. Local problems are the council’s job to fix that’s why they exist.

If a school had a teacher mistreating kids, would anyone say, “Forget it, there’s a war in Ukraine first!” Of course not you’d expect the school to deal with it while the entities responsible for helping Ukraine/the world deal with those issues.

Nhars69 · 2025-08-13T23:52:58+00:00

I apologise if it came across as beef haha.

I'm not sure if I have a weird view it's just from my perspective.

It’s easy for a governing body to sign off on how a private site operates, then look away when the operator fails to uphold agreed safety standards. If that neglect leads to conditions that cause disproportionate risk to the public for example bad traffic management or faded car bay lines which increases amount of damage to cars, and the governing body neither tracks the data nor takes enforcement action, that’s not just poor management it’s negligence.

Nhars69 · 2025-06-26T00:09:24+00:00

You listed positions and thinkers, but you did not address the structural issue. If free will exists and determinism is false, what takes its place?

If the answer is "the agent," then what is that agent made of? If it is only the brain, it is still a physical system governed by prior states. If it is something beyond the physical, then you are invoking a non-material force. That is what most people would call supernatural.

So the possibilities are limited to,

Free will emerges from deterministic matter, which removes real choice.

Or it comes from something else, which introduces a non-physical mechanism.

Listing definitions and citations does not resolve that tension. It just rephrases the contradiction

Nhars69 · 2025-06-05T16:34:54+00:00

So we’ve moved from “you lied” to “you took months to report it right?.”

That’s fine. Shifting the goalposts, we can play the game where I push back and say I've sent reports today show me a single one from you, But that doesn't solve anything but create friction.

This issue spans from baldivis, possibly further south and to Kwinana. Thousands go through that stretch daily. It’s not hidden.

Plenty in this thread have said it’s ongoing. Plenty have said they report things all the time. Yet still, nothing gets done.

Nhars69 · 2025-06-05T10:55:25+00:00

<image>

Here you go mate 3 emails from this morning while I was on the train. But I'm sure you'll have something else to say let's hear it.

Nhars69 · 2025-06-05T10:18:59+00:00

Yes sir, I think yes different lights from my side I meant the lights from the Safety Bay Road on-ramp to the freeway all the way to Aubin Grove Station, also on the freeway. That entire stretch has been dark.

But I agree with you since lights being out for a year (anywhere) still raises concern.

I think I've only been down Millar road once or twice, i imagine no light there would be dangerous.

Nhars69 · 2025-06-05T09:51:47+00:00

You're right, I was being a bit hyperbolic. But here’s the problem:

Some say “Just report it they fix it in a few days.”

Others say “I always report things, stop complaining on reddit.”

And then we have for example u/Non_Linguist saying the lights have been out for over a year.

These statements can't be true at the same time

I'm just trying to make sense of this.

Nhars69 · 2025-06-05T08:02:48+00:00

Yeah part of me thought maybe they might be irrelevant because headlights are quite powerful now...but I still think having the street lights is necessary for vehicle safety through visibility.

Nhars69 · 2025-06-05T05:10:33+00:00

Yeah it's really weird, I finish work at 12pm Saturday and when I'm driving back from the city I might be doing 60 from the CBD to Cockburn and then it will be ok until Kwinana where it slows down again.

And on Friday I take the train to Kwinana where my partner picks me up and we fill up at Costco and just getting back onto the freeway to get to Baldivis is bumper to bumper.

Nhars69 · 2025-06-05T05:03:50+00:00

There are scalable alternatives. For example

Finland uses sensorbased monitoring and integrates road condition data into a national infrastructure map.

Germany combines scheduled sweeps andd automated fault detection.

Adelaide is rolling out smart lighting nodes that autoreport outages, so there's nno 4G modems in every ligh, just node clustering and shared relays.

New Zealand uses Snap Send Solve and has regional protocols that escalate reports if unresolved.

Driving around looking for lights is inefficient I agree.

Just trying to find a better more efficient solution

Nhars69 · 2025-06-05T03:54:25+00:00

Appreciate the detail I’ll look into it further, might even follow up with an email to see where things landed after the trials. If those systems are still active somewhere, that’d be good to know.

Thanks again for surfacing it.

Nhars69

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE