From left: Resident Warwick Glendenning who raised the issue of water supply for fire fighting in the Harkaway area, resident Bill Redpath, and meeting chairman Edrington Ward councillor Brian Hetherton.A PUBLIC meeting held at Harkaway on Monday night decided to ask the City of Casey to consider establishment of firefighting watertapping points at Chadwick Road and Sewell Drive.
And that the council and CFA ensure that a ‘Fire Ready Victoria’ program is put in place at Harkaway. Edrington Ward councillor Brian Hetherton called the meeting in response to a claim during the last fire season by former Berwick councillor Warwick Glendenning that Harkaway was at risk.
Mr Glendenning said this was because it did not have an adequate water supply to cope with a major fire.
My expectation of the meeting was that we would have discussion with residents totally against the introduction of reticulated water because I was led to believe there was an antiwater lobby in the village. The argument put to me was that reticulated water meant the introduction of sewerage and then development. The opposite was the case at this meeting.
One speaker asked why it was that Harkaway could not get water and sewerage and another said Harkaway had been in a time capsule and received little in the way of services.
Cr Hetherton held the meeting fairly much to the topic on his agenda, but went away with much to think about.
“We will see who owns these problems and the council will make a public statement,” he said.
Residents were also told that they must accept a fair degree of responsibility when it came to fire protection and prevention.
The battle cannot all be left to the CFA and the council.
Edrington Ward councillor Mick Morland said a show of hands at the meeting indicated that few people had attended CFA briefings on fire protection.
“It is incumbent on residents to attend these meetings and it is a responsibility of people to see that other people maintain their properties in a safe way. We have 50 people at this meeting out of a possible 300 and that means that 250 residents have not heard the message,” he said.
My view was that many did hear the message and will press for action.
Whether or not Harkaway people were in fact ‘living in a time capsule’ I do not know, but I left the meeting with a feeling of ‘Brigadoon’.
