Parkes Phoenix Editor

Lines will be marked and sandbags will be placed around the crossing at the corner of Templar and Rankin Streets next week as part of the Forbes Shire Council’s plan to upgrade the pedestrian crossing there. Council’s plan will involve bringing the kerbs on either side of the crossing further out into the street.

Council may also decide to raise the crossing in order to slow traffic down driving over it, but this is yet to be confirmed. Under the plan, Council also hopes to add three extra car parking spaces near the crossing by bringing the red ‘no parking’ sign further up the street. A State Government grant will fund the project, which has been quoted at $21,850, and must be spent before the end of the current financial year.

However the plan came as a surprise to local businesses on Rankin Street, which received a letter just two days prior to Council initially wanting to start work on the project, which was Monday this week. Cahill’s Footwear owner Martin Cahill, whose store is near the crossing on Rankin Street, arranged a meeting between businesses and Council on Tuesday evening, with about 20 people attending.

As a result Council decided to place sandbags as a way of physically marking on the street what they planned to do so local businesses could get a grasp of it, and a follow-up meeting will be held at 5.30pm on Monday May 2.

Mr Cahill and Chapter Two staff member Kim Sly said concerns were held mostly for the lack of communication from Council over the matter, but also on the kerb widening making the street too narrow for traffic. Council Acting General Manager Max Kershaw apologised for giving businesses just two days notice, adding it was “unacceptable”.

The Forbes Business Chamber is currently working with the Forbes Shire Council on a 15-year plan to improve the town’s CBD. Chamber President Stuart Thomas said areas such as the CBD’s streetscape, shared zones, shade improvements as well as other ideas to improve the shopping experience in Forbes would be considered.

Mr Thomas said the overall goal was to make Forbes a “vibrant shopping space”. “We’ve got a goal with the view that we’ll end up with a vibrant shopping district, but also more than that, an area where the community will enjoy having a meal and a chat, and do their shopping,” he said.

“It would have a combined effect of social benefits for the community, but also
economic benefits, and the retailers would benefit.” “Retailers are effected by things like online shopping now, so they need to create a point of difference so more people will walk into the store. It’ll be about the shopping experience.”
Mr Thomas said the process would be long, but one that would see input by not just the Chamber and Council, but also businesses themselves and the community.

He said a revamp of the CBD and changes to the streets were not out of the question, and this was something Council had considered in the past, but remodeling the town would take a lengthy process of consultations.

“The concept is going to involve business input but also community input. You need something that people want rather than something that is forced into place,” he said. Mr Thomas added there were also benefits from businesses investing within themselves. “Tradesmen benefit from the work, and that brings money into the local economy, and it creates a new feel and freshens things up,” he said.

New Forbes Medical Centre registrar Dr Chen-yi Lo has already lived in a number of places in Australia, but says she is enjoying the friendly lifestyle Forbes has to offer. Dr Lo started working at the Forbes Medical Centre this year, along with fellow newcomers Dr Maria Rasool and Dr Farrah Yasmin.

It is her first permanent position in a General Practitioners clinic, with her previous work being in hospitals, apart from a brief three-month period. Dr Lo was born in Taiwan, and spent her school years in Singapore before relocating
to Melbourne in 2002, where she spent six years at the University of Melbourne in medical studies.

Before she moved to Forbes this year, she worked at the Ballarat Hospital in Victoria, and prior to that, she spent seven years working at hospitals in South Australia, where she first started work as a doctor. She is currently in a 12 month rotating working arrangement, and as such, she will move on to another, yet-to-be-determined, medical practice next year.

She said she was enjoying the friendly and easy lifestyle Forbes provided. “Forbes is very different from where I have been before. It’s a long way from the nearest major cities,” she said. “I have worked in rural communities before, so Forbes isn’t really that different in that way, but the distance from the nearest city is what is new for me.”

“The environment in Forbes is really enjoyable, and the people here are really friendly, so it hasn’t been too difficult getting used to living here.” Having worked mostly in cities, such as Adelaide and Ballarat, Dr Lo said there were differences in the environment of working in either setting.

“You get to know your patients a lot better working in a rural GP clinic than a city hospital, as the people will normally always come to see the same doctor,” she said.

By Joshua Matic