The latest City of Greater Shepparton Annual Report released in October, 2005 has a statement about Council and VicUrban's progress (read `demolition') with regard to Parkside Gardens
(now affectionately known as The Grave, Lakeside)

Ian Martin, the Director of Services wrote proudly in his report:

Parkside Gardens work has also been continuing behind the scenes with much work on design, heritage issues, flood management and open space enhancement being undertaken. The removal of weed tree species from the site has already enhanced the overall location.(p20)

What we think it really means?

1.'behind the scenes'

We are keeping this project very quiet because we know the whole project is 'on the nose'.
We don't want that damn Parkside Gardens lot causing us any more trouble because we might not be able to sell the blocks if the new subdivision (known affectionately as 'The Grave Lakeside'), gets a worse 'smell' about it than it already has. We really know that most people here want to keep all of Parkside Gardens but we don't want to admit it because that would be admitting the unthinkable. Yep! That would mean we were wrong and we don't use that word; in fact we don't actually know what it means (unless we are talking about someone else)

2.'heritage issues'

This has become an absolute pain in the bum because the Parkside Gardens group beat us up at last years Heritage hearing just when we thought nothing else could go wrong. We went against the recommendation by Heritage Victoria that the entire park is historically and socially important to the local community, hoping 'that lot' would finally go away. But, no! Now they are making us go through another heritage hearing in December and we just don't understand why. We think it's because they don't like us.

3. 'flood management'

What's wrong with putting a mound of soil between the proposed house blocks and the DECA skidpan? We all know the noise from the DECA skidpan has to be lessened somehow. It's called noise mitigation. This mound will help with 'flood management'. Yes! It will manage to push the water sideways to the other surrounding housing estates and will act like a levee bank. It's just a pity that the housing will be on the side that holds the water back.

'removal of weed species'

We in COGS will not tolerate tree weeds such as willows (even if other towns and cities in Victoria are keeping the willow trees in their parks) We are proud to say that we have removed all of the willow trees from Victoria Park Lake and most of the willow trees in Parkside Gardens and we
can't wait to cut the rest down. They are weeds,weeds,weeds .....except when they are growing around the waterways in Kialla Lakes, but we are hoping that no-one has noticed this discrepancy.

A concluding message from COGS:

Finally, we want you all to know that the Friends of Parkside Gardens are just an annoying vocal minority group. We know that a candidate for the Greater Shepparton Council elections, Jenny Houlihan, has just completed a survey which was returned by 948 people living in all towns and rural areas in the municipality. They were asked: 'Should Parkside Gardens be turned into a private housing estate'? (905 people responded to this question)

(click here for results)

Yes, we know that 905 people would be accepted as a legitimate sample if it was a COGS survey but it's not, so we won't be taking any notice of it. At least we are being consistent!