[pmrid (Peter)]

A couple of weeks ago, I had a collapse while trying to mow my footpath. I have a corner block - so a double-length of council's grass. A neighbor helped me home and I was OK after a bit of a lie-down. As someone who has had a quadruple heart bypass and also a number of crushed vertebrae in the lower spine, this collapse was a warning I could no longer ignore. So I have gone back to the bloke who used to mow my lawn and put myself back on his list.

I had decided to do it myself because the cost was getting too much - I found I was paying more to mow the footpath than I pay Council in rates. A bit ironic.

SO I decided to do some investigating into the question of mowing footpaths. I wrote to my local Councillor in the hope of a rational reply. You don't get to deal directly with the Councillors (or members of parliament for that matter). You have to deal with some "assistant".

In the result, the assistant just referred my email to the Council s operations office and her response to me in the meantime was polite but unhelpful. She referred me to a bylaw which basically said council relies on owners to mow their footpaths and would only intervene in the event of health or emergency. I was mildly encouraged by this since I thought I had ticked the "heath" box fully.

I wrote back asking if there was any regulatory basis for this. She in turn replied with a link to a statute that said council inspectors could issue me with a compliance notice requiring me to mow the footpath if in their opinion it raised health and safety concerns. Failure to respond could lead to prosecution and council would mow it at my expense.

This didn't really answer the question but it did seem a bit of a dead end.

But a few days later a chap from the council came and had a chat in which he said council had not been mowing peoples footpaths for several years - notwithstanding that their own bylaws did make provision for it. Health issues did not come into the equation. The rationale was that if they did it for me - there would be an avalanche of others making a similar request.

I wrote back saying that the fact of a avalanche was - by itself - a reason for council to see that there was a problem of some size out there which they were ignoring. I don't expect any other replies but I am surprised that council can basically ignore the power their own bylaws give it.

Anyway - that's my whinge for the day but I would like to ask IIS members out there what their own Shire Council does.