Yesterday saw an opportunity for those who live next to, love and/or use the Orphanage Park to respond to options suggested by the Brownhill Creek stormwater team for that section of the creek running through the Orphanage.

It was a productive session I feel as around a hundred people by my estimation (I was there from the start and left around 4.00 pm) attended. A number of nearby residents and people who use the park provided important input. Interestingly many of the conversations I personally had centered not on Orphanage Park but on their own property.

This forum was part of the process of talking to property owners who have the creek running through their properties about how we might clean up the creek itself. This is the one component in the process of reducing the flood risk we are trying to circumvent that has always been recognised as being needed but which has yet to be addressed.

It is a process that commenced a couple of months back.

As I have experienced before in public consultation a few who I personally spoke with were, including people who had been to a specific forum dealing with their immediate section of the creek and who have since had one on one discussions with members of the Brownhill Creek team, bemused and confused that we would speak to them before we had plans for their section of the creek.

They had difficulty in accepting that we see their local knowledge as important in identifying what if anything needs to be done in their section of the creek to mitigate their flood risk. Hopefully they are now recognising that Unley Council at leas has been to get this whole equation right. In respect of any creek clean up or upgrade that can only be calculated accurately (if at all) with the benefit of local knowledge which comes from you.

An interesting take by these residents after I have heard from a few residents impacted by the DPA I have blogged a lot on lately who criticised us for not doing exactly that.

Watch this space for more observations about the Brownhill Creek Flood Mitigation project and what I gleaned from this part of the consultation.