Page 2026 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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to drive; you can walk, you can ride your bike, particularly if you only need to buy a few grocery items, have your haircut, buy a takeaway or the local paper. So you can ride or walk, get some exercise and reduce Canberra’s ecological footprint.
It could be argued that small and local businesses give the most back to their local communities. They sponsor events and support local groups in ways nationally owned companies quite often do not. Standing up for small and local businesses is something the Greens feel strongly about. Locally owned small businesses give back to the community in so many ways that add great value to the communities they are located within. The size of a development in a local shopping centre has significant impacts on the surrounding area and a small business impact statement is needed to investigate the possible ramifications of new developments.
The Giralang local centre, as it currently stands, offers an excellent opportunity for a small business to commence a supermarket. The population of Giralang is big enough to support a smaller scale supermarket. Large developments carry the concerns of increased traffic, large trucks and a larger volume of cars. Increased traffic flow requires careful planning, may need upgrades and additional safety measures to be implemented. I urge the government to consider the broader issues of supermarket policy and large developments in general.
While I note that developments should be judged on their merits according to the territory plan, Giralang is a contemporary example of why we need to make sure the community is meaningfully engaged in planning decisions concerning their neighbourhoods. I understand that many residents of Giralang have a strong desire to see the return of their local shops but I believe that they desire a development that will serve their community as a whole and maintain the benefits of such a development within the local economy.
In my role as a member for Ginninderra, I am deeply concerned about delivering the best possible outcome, not only for the people of Giralang, but a solution that will benefit the greater Belconnen community.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (5.27): Fitting the right level of development in our suburbs is absolutely vital, especially these days when we are seeing a decline in our volunteering and in attendances at a lot of our community events and the closure of a number of schools so that the local shops do become very important hubs, very important social and community hubs, for people to congregate at, to share information and indeed even for the government to consult and for candidates to consult at election times.
I think the importance of local shops to Canberra can be seen very clearly in the months leading up to elections, when you have every candidate, from every party seemingly, at a local shopping centre on a Saturday morning. If local shopping centres were not in demand, then we as candidates would not be at these local shopping centres. These local shopping centres are meeting points; they are hubs for our suburbs; and it is very important that we get development that affects these local shopping centres correctly.
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