Page 1939 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 24 October 1989
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Metal Recycling
MR STEFANIAK: My question is to the Minister for Urban Services. On 4 July 1989 I asked a question concerning the operations of a metal recycling yard in Newcastle Street, Fyshwick, run by Mr Ron Wanless. Would the Minister please inform me whether the yard is still in operation or whether Mr Wanless has now ceased operating there? If so, what is the current situation with the yard, especially regarding the large amount of car bodies and wrecks that are lying in the yard?
MRS GRASSBY: I will have to get back to Mr Stefaniak about that, Mr Speaker.
Government Housing
MR COLLAERY: Well, Minister, I will give you another one. I ask the Minister for Housing and Urban Services: in view of the problems that have arisen out of the 7,000 series government houses - they are two-storey with a flat roof and are unpopular with occupants - would you care to comment on the size of the Government's inventory in that regard and what steps you are going to take in long-term management of those homes? Could you indicate whether we have got another Melba flats situation on our hands?
MRS GRASSBY: Thank you, Mr Collaery. I cannot tell you the exact number. We have them scattered over various suburbs. I went to have a look at some of them that are empty, and they are rather terrible. I cannot understand how they ever got passed and built. There are some that we feel something can be done with and they can be made at least nice enough for people to want to live in. There are others that I think are in terrible condition and are very bad. The blocks of land are very bad. We are looking at maybe pulling these down and, on the double blocks where there are two, probably putting up four town houses. These are in suburbs that people wish to live in and the land would cost us a lot more if we tried to buy it elsewhere. They are also quite inner suburbs and people do not all want to go way out. So we will be looking at that.
At the moment I am getting people to look at them to see whether we could sell some of them if they were made a little nicer. This would give us more money to put the four on two blocks. We would have town houses built round the courtyard areas because it seems to be so popular after the Turner group that we built. At this stage that is what we are looking at, whether they would bring us money or - we have got builders looking at them - whether it would be better to do them all up and try to add to them to make them better. The only problem is that most of them have very steep staircases and they have three bedrooms. To put small children in a three-bedroom house with a staircase
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