Page 1527 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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result, TAMS and the skateboarding community are now working together to assist with future upgrades, maintenance and other operational matters to further improve the facilities.
It is worth noting these facilities, even though they are referred to as skate parks, are actually used for bikes and scooters as well as skateboards. This is important to know because work is beginning to coordinate with the skate park users in order to create a skate park strategy. It is in the very early stages and it will involve many stakeholders in the consultation process. I am encouraged by this because we have now identified a group of people the government can talk with on an ongoing basis about skate park maintenance and skate park care in the ACT.
Let me turn briefly to dog parks, because we know dogs play a very important role in people’s lives in many households across Canberra. Perhaps their favourite is a dog. The government’s funding for dog parks acknowledges the benefits dogs can have for people’s physical and mental health. Many of these benefits are through active outdoor exercise often undertaken in our public open spaces. As well as a large network of off-leash dog areas Canberra is home to five dog parks at Lake Ginninderra, Lake Tuggeranong, Weston park, Forde and Casey. This is a great development as people in Canberra asked for these parks.
Also, as Ms Berry notes in her motion, the government has already committed to the construction of a new dog park in the inner north at a cost of $450,000, which is scheduled to be completed at the end of next month. Work is also underway to provide lighting at some of the dog parks. That is a request that has also come to the government and we are now looking for the resources to get underway with that network.
Socialising and exercising dogs is an integral element in training dogs to give them the behavioural standards to be out there on the streets and for everybody to feel safe and happy around those dogs. Mr Coe raised the issue of the review of all areas across Canberra where dogs can be exercised and under what conditions. TAMS is about to embark on the review. The community will have input to the designation of areas through this review process, and the consultation will tease out competing interests and clearly identify areas where dogs can exercise off-leash and areas where, for safety or environmental reasons, they require some restraint. I will be announcing the details of this consultation very soon.
With regard to the concern about the delay, it has been a very complex exercise. We are going to see a massive upgrade in capability, and this goes with new technologies like Google Maps where TAMS has been working hard to identify exactly the right places and delineate the model that is easily understood so that people do not have to rely on a map as such and that there is an intuitive sense that this area should be off-leash or it should be on-leash. We are trying to work through the details of how to make that more obvious so there is not a dispute about a line on a map but a natural sense to the way this system works.
In relation to Ms Berry’s remarks about the proposals to investigate the best uses for parks to ensure they are providing the best utility for the community and also her
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