By Violet Li
A former Frankston mayor is lashing out at Casey Council’s local laws department for failing to curb heavy trucks from illegally parking in his neighbourhood for the past two years.
Colin Hampton of Cranbourne East said the same cohort of trucks had been parking along the Elmslie Drive Reserve adjacent to Annabella Street for the last two years between 4pm and 6am, and 24 hours a day over the weekend.
“When Cameron Street was shut two years ago, I started to see trucks,” he said.
“One truck was there, and then there were two trucks, and then there were three trucks.
“One attracts the other.
“We’ve got a big development at the end of Cameron Street. I don’t know how many hundreds of families will be in there. And that open space [Elmslie Drive Reserve] is precious to them, and they don’t want an open space with a truck stop at the front.”
According to the Victorian Road Safety Rules 2017, it is illegal for a heavy or long vehicle to be parked in a built-up area for more than one hour at a time unless parking signs indicate otherwise, or it is picking up or dropping off goods.
As the trucks weigh heavier than the allowed range with no sign around permitting the parking, Mr Hampton brought the issue to the council earlier this year.
The subsequent back-and-forth disappointed him.
Four months lapsed, and he could still see trucks parking at the same spots.
Mr Hampton subsequently submitted related questions in March and April’s council meetings and received responses from the City of Casey’s director of community life, Steve Coldham, who said that council officers had conducted regular patrols and issued five infringements to trucks parked illegally in the area.
Mr Hampton said council officers were obviously not patrolling “regularly”.
“They’ve issued five infringements, but they’ve only been issued in the last four months since I’ve been in touch [with them],” he said.
“What happened in the two years beforehand?”
City of Casey manager connected communities Callum Pattie said council officers had conducted regular patrols and issued eight infringements to trucks parked illegally, at the time of the writing on Tuesday 28 May.
“Officers will continue to monitor the area and undertake any enforcement activities where appropriate,” he said.
Mr Hampton submitted another question in relation to the illegal parking of the trucks at May’s council meeting, and he said the council did not provide any relevant answer and “censored” his question.
He wrote that it was time for the council to conduct an audit of this department’s [local law department] management and work practices to improve the level of compliance with the City’s by-laws.
“Bearing in mind the trucks that have and still are, parked illegally over the last two years adjacent to Elmslie Drive Reserve due to the inability of the by-laws department to issue sufficient infringement notices to move these vehicles on.
“I would imagine the Minister’s office would not be happy with this standard of compliance.”
A council officer wrote back to Mr Hampton that “this is questioning the work practices and management of the department”.
“A question will not be read or answered if it makes unsubstantiated allegations.”
Mr Hampton said the fact that the trucks were still there made it well substantiated.
“It shouldn’t have been me asking this question. It should have been the administrators,” he said.
“I’d written months beforehand about the problem.
“It shows really bad governance. The administrators of this council, who are paid half a million dollars a year, are ignoring breaches of the local laws.”
City of Casey manager communications and corporate governance Chloe Casey said public questions must comply with the requirements set out in the Governance Rules (section 61.6).
The Governance Rules stipulate that a question will not be read and an answer will not be provided if the matter relates to trivial matters or makes unsubstantiated allegations, and includes content that a reasonable person may find to be indecent, abusive, offensive, irrelevant, or objectionable.
“Where a question doesn’t meet these requirements, council officers communicate back to the resident why their question has been rendered invalid and provide them with an opportunity to resubmit their question,” Ms Casey said.
“Mr Hampton was advised why one of the public questions he submitted to the council Meeting public question time on 21 May 2024 did not meet these criteria.
“His other question was read and answered in full.”
