Calls to improve Canning streetscape

North Melbourne residents are calling for the streetscape along a section of Canning St to be improved after one described it as looking “degraded”.

Long-term resident Kaye Oddie said a section of the street between Vaughan Terrace and Melrose St had begun to deteriorate, particularly around the front of Woolworths where rubbish and trolleys were regularly dumped.

She said the nature strip near Woolworths also needed new grass after being worn down by people walking over it.

“I guess you could say the whole streetscape is becoming quite degraded. There are lots of trolleys left there and dumped stuff coming out of the flats, which are above the Woolworths complex.”

The City of Melbourne said council contractors and local laws officers regularly patrolled the municipality and responded to reports of dumped rubbish.

It also noted properties on Canning St, between Melrose and Buncle streets, were a mixture of private and public housing, and the council was working closely with the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DHHS) to educate residents, and deter dumping in the area.

Ms Oddie said if the area was kept clean people would have “second thoughts of dropping their litter”.

In addition, she said a “step in the right direction” would be to put in a grass median strip on Canning St to improve the visual amenity.

She said more trees and greenery should be encouraged but feared the council would remove the grass from the nature strip and replace it with granitic sand, creating an “even more visual blight”.

Illegally dumped rubbish can be reported, and hard waste collections can be organised by private residents, online: melbourne.vic.gov.au

Public housing residents can organise collection via the DHHS. •