Council gets back control of laneways, leaving door open for community garden

The City of Melbourne has declared two laneways in North Melbourne as public highways, allowing it greater control to address concerns of traffic and safety issues and opening the opportunity of re-establishing a community garden.

Councillors unanimously voted in favour of the two laneways in question, Shands Lane and Erksine Place, being named as public highways at their March 26 council meeting.

A council report said while the declaration “does not significantly change the current situation in terms of public use, traffic congestion, noise pollution or safety”, it would allow council greater responsibility of managing and maintaining the laneways.

It follows concerns raised by residents of trucks accessing the narrow laneways which included minor damage to a home and community garden being “forcibly removed” by owners on Shands Lane in May last year.

“In the 42 years I’ve lived by the lane, I have found that damage from vehicles occasionally attempting to access the western end of Shands Lane to park is not uncommon,” one resident wrote in a submission.

The resident, who supported the declaration but hoped some issues would be addressed, noted the laneway was three metres wide, and “even at low speeds the risk posed to pedestrians is immense”.

“There is no safe space to stand and no way to see vehicles coming, particularly when they are travelling east. This is a blind corner.”

The council’s chief legal officer Kim Wood said while laneways were already considered public highways at common law, the declaration “just gives you that greater ability for our officers to have some management”.

 “Our parking officers, our engineering officers, can all actually deal with the road issues,” he told the meeting. “We can’t stop the types of vehicles that use the laneway. What we can do is if someone wants to develop the site for instance as here, we would have a construction management plan which would control the nature of the use of the area.”

The council report referred to a development of a property at Erskine St (near Erksine Place), which, had a traffic management plan been required, it “would have managed traffic issues arising from large vehicles accessing the development site”.

“That’s where our construction management plan comes into play, and we talk with the developer about the types of vehicles when they deliver and these types of things,” Mr Wood said.

Deputy Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece said it was important to protect and preserve the municipality’s laneways.

“[There are] some really practical things like improved signage that would warn against trucks or large vehicles using some of these laneways, the use of things like bollards are very sensible, practical things that could improve the operation of these laneways,” he said.

“I note that submitters have also established a community garden in this laneway in the past, which is a great initiative, and I’m confident that our team will do the work that’s required to make sure this laneway is used for that benefit." •

Caption: A community garden after it was “forcibly removed” in Shands Lane. Photo: City of Melbourne.