Murray Bridge council watch: City needs a monthly market, resident suggests

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Murray Bridge needs to get a community market going again, a local resident has told councillors.

A monthly market on a Sunday at the city’s wharf precinct would be best, Styl Foumakis suggested at the council’s March meeting.

As well as giving local producers somewhere to sell directly to customers, the market should feature artisans and craftspeople, with food and live music.

Mr Foumakis suggested the council would be best placed to organise such an event.

Councillors were generally positive about the idea, and Cr Tom Haig suggested council staff look into it.

Murray Bridge last had a farmers’ market during the 2010s, run by volunteers, initially at the council car park, then at the wharf precinct every Saturday morning.

Youth services need more funding, review finds

More staff are needed to sustain Murray Bridge’s youth centre, the Station, a council review of youth services has found.

While the council could be proud that it had the top performing arts-based youth centre in regional South Australia, its only youth officer had way too much on his plate.

In her review, consultant Lisa Baker suggested increasing staffing levels at the Station from one full-time position to 2.2 FTE: two full-timers plus someone working one extra day per week, or something like that.

Councillors have not yet decided whether it would be worth spending the extra $130,000 on youth services.

They will think more about it as they draft the council’s 2025-26 budget in the coming months.

In the meantime, the council will scale back its youth activities to make its youth development officer’s job more manageable.

Weekly groups Band Connections and Hip Hop Connect will continue, but the council’s involvement in other youth-related events will be limited for now.

The council had already suspended both of its youth advisory groups – a youth action committee and a youth council – last October.

Knight Street reserve could make a good dog park

Having rejected the idea of to turning Avoca Dell or Tumbella Drive Reserves into dog parks, a councillor has come up with another proposal: what about Knight Street Reserve?

The little park, not far from Long Island Road, was already fenced on three sides and was “vastly underutilised”, Cr Tom Haig pointed out.

It was also close to the coming Narooma Rise development.

Councillors agreed – they asked council staff to investigate how much it would cost to make the park more dog-friendly, and to consider including that cost in the council’s 2025-26 budget.

• Read more: Dog park time-share scheme abandoned

Maurice Road homes will get new street numbers

Have you ever noticed that a cluster of properties on Maurice Road, Murray Bridge has unusual street numbers, like 2Q to 2Z?

The council has just noticed, and will soon change them.

The issue came up recently when the operators of a new childcare centre, soon to be completed, discovered that they didn’t have a street address.

The council will now re-number all the properties between Mulgundawah and Adelaide Roads so that they make sense.

The two businesses on the corner of Chris Collins Court will be given addresses on the side street, and numbers 2-38 Maurice Road will be reserved for properties in a proposed over-50s lifestyle village.

Residents have already been advised about the proposed change.

Council votes ‘no’ to vaccine investigation

A month after a local resident asked the Murray Bridge council to join a campaign against vaccines based on mRNA technology, councillors have decided: no thanks.

The council voted 7-2 against the idea, with only Councillors Clem Schubert and Andrew Baltensperger in support.

Even Cr Tom Haig, who had campaigned against mandates in the past, argued that vaccines had saved many lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that most of the arguments put up by resident Robert Roach had been debunked.

Members of the public in a packed gallery grumbled and called out “shame” during the debate, and all left the chamber in protest after the vote.

Two leases and a land transfer approved

Murray Bridge councillors have approved three property transactions at their March meeting:

• The council will take ownership of the two new fairways atMurray Bridge Golf Clubnow that they have been completed; they will be added to the area of community land leased by the club.
• The council will give the city’s show society a new five-year lease over theshowgroundon the east side for a token fee of $1 per year, with an option for another five-year extension. Only one ratepayer objected, but mainly because the public toilets were always locked; the council will look into that issue.
• Likewise, the council agreed to grant a new five-plus-five-year lease toMurray Bridge Community Children’s Centreover its property on Mannum Road. Sixteen members of the public offered feedback on that deal, all of it positive.

Disaster funding needs to be handled better

The Murray Bridge council is still about $1.5 million worse off as a result of the 2022-23 River Murray floods, even as federal disaster recovery funding remains unspent.

That’s not okay, Cr Tom Haig says.

Councillors voted last week to lobby for better disaster funding arrangements through the Australian Local Government Association.

Murray Bridge joins National Growth Areas Alliance

Finally, with Murray Bridge squarely in the crosshairs for a major population increase, the city’s council will join a national association of local governments in high-growth areas.

The National Growth Areas Alliance’s other members include Mount Barker and the City of Playford, in Adelaide’s northern suburbs.

The group lobbies state and federal governments for support around housing, jobs, education, health services and other infrastructure.

Membership will cost Murray Bridge ratepayers about $13,000 per year.