VOLUNTEERS at the City Life cafe give a helping hand to Frankston’s homeless and the needy but the church welfare organisation also needs a helping hand itself this year. Food is dished up to the hungry each day at the Clyde St Mall and an outreach van, dubbed The Cornershop Kitchen, visits communities to distribute much-needed meals. Finances at the charity are tight and an impending move from its existing premises to make way for an apartment complex development means City Life faces struggles of its own. Pastor Mark Whitby, who manages City Life’s resources, said “it’s been a pretty tough…
Author: Neil Walker
PUNTERS in Victoria lost $5.8 billion while gambling in the past financial year and poker machine losses in pubs and clubs made up $2.57 billion of the total losses as gamblers. An annual report tabled by the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation in State Parliament last week revealed that in 2014-15 gamblers lost $2.57 billion on pokies, $1.84 billion on gaming machines and tables at Crown Casino and $857.6 million on racing, trackside, football and sports betting. Victorians also lost $500.6 million on lotteries and $16.7 million on Keno. While punters lost cash the state government raked in…
BRAESIDE businesses have been short-changed yet again during the rollout of the national broadband network. NBN Co updated its rollout schedule last month and it was revealed work will not begin to connect the suburb of Braeside to the high-speed internet network until the first half of 2018. Extensive lobbying by Kingston Council and local MPs to prioritise connections in Braeside to help the area’s businesses compete with global competitors has apparently fallen on deaf ears (‘Slow internet costing business’, The News 29/4/15). NBN Co spokesman Michael Moore said the three-year rollout plan released last month “is designed to ensure…
KINGSTON councillors elected a new mayor last week. Cr Tamsin Bearsley won a five-three split vote against challenger Cr Steve Staikos at a public council meeting last Wednesday evening (11 November). Cr Bearsley succeeds former mayor Cr Geoff Gledhill who handed over the mayoral robes after his 12-month stint as Kingston’s civic leader. Councillors usually discuss who will be mayor at a closed meeting before a mayor is elected in public to resolve any differences of opinion so a new mayor begins the statutory 12-month tenure as civic leader and chair of council meetings with a united council front but…
AN AUDIT of passenger numbers on Frankston line trains during the month of May has found too many passengers were squeezed onto Frankston line trains on six occasions during morning 7-9am peak time services. Public Transport Victoria conducts a passenger load survey each May and October to assess overcrowding on trains across the state’s rail network. The latest survey, released this month, “recorded a total of six services in the AM Peak period where passenger loads did not meet PTV standards”. The overcrowding comes despite Metro Trains introducing two new train services during the AM peak travel period in the…