FRANKSTON Council will review its internal processes following community backlash to its plans to boot two mobile vendors from their site at Olivers Hill.
Council has reversed its decision to move on Little Olly’s cafe van and Cripps Fish and Chips from their current site at the base of Olivers Hill. The licence to trade handed to the two operators was coming up, and after the conclusion of an expression of interest process council elected to replace them with a mobile Mercettas restaurant. The three businesses have now agreed to share the site for 12 months.
At their last public meeting, councillors Liam Hughes and Steven Hughes proposed that the existing vendors should receive first preference to continue trading for an additional two years if they choose to do so. This proposal was voted down.
Steven Hughes said “when a community builds up a relationship with a vendor, every 12 months they’re going to lose that relationship, they’re going to be torn out. It doesn’t make sense to be continually taking away vendors.”
Discussion on the first preference extension proposal broke down when deputy mayor Suzette Tayler attempted to finish debate before Steven Hughes had delivered a speech and put the proposal to a vote. Members of the public began shouting abuse at councillors, and the mayor temporarily stopped the meeting to remove the gallery.
After a short break Steven Hughes was permitted to continue speaking on the matter. He said “what we’ve seen with this Little Olly’s decision is a bureaucracy that’s not listening to the community that it’s supposed to serve. Not once during this process was the community ever consulted on what business we wanted at Olivers Hill. Instead, we have bureaucrats telling us what food choices are best for us, and we had to accept their decision,” he said.
Council CEO Phil Cantillon told the meeting that Hughes’ language had caused offence. Hughes had called the Little Olly’s decision “terrible” and woeful”. Cantillon said he was “satisfied the organisation has gone through a fair expression of interest process and I think the choice of words may give the wrong impression in the community as to the integrity of the process that we have gone through, and the trust we are hoping to build with the operators and the community.”
The decision to replace the current vendors with Mercettas was made by council officers outside of the council chamber. Frankston Council has agreed to assess its review process for “Do it Outdoors” applications such as those made for the use of Olivers Hill. The review will include the way council consults with the community on those decisions, and will consider other sites which may be used for trading in the future.
The mayor Nathan Conroy said he was “confident” about the proposed review, which is set to include “the length of leases, the community element, the social element, and maybe the right of reply.”
“[The review] will include community consultation as well, and then it will come back to us. Any decision that we make will come back into this chamber for any future licences.”
Little Olly’s and Cripps have been handed licences to trade at the base of Olivers Hill through until December 2023. They will be joined by Mercettas this December.
