A Wyndham shopping centre is having a turf war with Wyndham council.
Sanctuary Lakes shopping centre says it has spent the past year in talks with the council in a bid to fix deep potholes that have developed along nature strips at Jamieson Way and Kirkstone Road, which bound the shopping centre.
Centre manager Emily Grass said the potholes had been caused by cars and trucks parking along the nature strips, with some vehicles requiring a tow after getting bogged down in the mud during wet weather.
Ms Grass said the shopping centre approved of the council’s idea to fill the nature strips with gravel some months back, but this had yet to occur.
She also said the shopping centre owners had offered to pay for indented car parking along these streets in February.
“It’s a massive safety hazard,” she said.
“Drivers are now parking on the footpath to avoid getting stuck in the mud.”
Ms Grass said there’s already been one instance where a pedestrian fell into one of the holes in a nature strip along Kirkstone Road.
Wyndham council city operations director Stephen Thorpe said the council was looking at a range of solutions to fix the problem, but would not account for why nothing had been done in the past 12 months.
Mr Thorpe said the council has so far fined eight drivers for parking on the nature strips.
“We are prepared to look at providing indented parking in streets if the shopping centre is offering to pay,” he said.
“Some of the other options we are considering include planting trees along the nature strip and installing ‘no parking’ signs.”
