Great scores overall in the Community Survey but Karratha needs more State support according to mayor

The results are in. The City of Karratha has recorded its equal best results in its annual community survey but more needs to be done by the State Government to address the high cost of living and housing, according to the mayor. Both were issues in which residents said the City had gone backwards. The annual survey, asks residents to rate the City’s services, facilities and livability factors out of 100. This year it received 909 submissions, its largest ever number. While the city received its equal highest overall satisfaction score of 76 out of 100 since the survey started 12 years ago, the City ranked the worst in the livability category, with cost of living, access to health services and housing receiving the worst responses. Mayor Peter Long said the high scores in the service category was due to multiple smart city initiatives, like the web app Report It, that alerts City workers to issues around Karratha in real time. “With graffiti removal we have a dedicated team. We also have an app which is on our website, or you can put it on your phone, it’s called Report It,” he said. “So if anyone sees any graffiti they can go into that app and report it, it goes straight to our office.” City services that ranked highly included bin collection, foreshore amenity, and footpaths and cycleways. Many negative comments were recorded in the survey. “There are weeds everywhere,” one resident said. “It looks terrible!” “CoK only care about Karratha. Have you seen the disgrace of the main street of Roebourne, Wickham and Samson?” “Footpath, verges and median strips are covered in weeds. Especially when (you) get away from the main roads. Graffiti all over the footpaths and in the underpasses. How many Shire workers have driven past it and not done anything about it.” The City scored low in the livability category, with cost of living, access to health services and housing receiving the worst responses. Cr Long said these factors were the responsibility of the State Government, so there was not much the council could do to address them. “The things where we don’t do so well, for example, things like health, security and education, people give us a poor score for that but they’re actually not our responsibility — it’s the State Government’s (responsibility),” he said. “We don’t build the schools and we don’t supply the police force. “So we just can’t do anything about that. We do what we can in lobbying the State Government and (we) ask them to do more in that area. The things that we actually have the ability to act on ourselves we generally do quite well.” Last week Pilbara News reported on the drastic 82.7 per cent increase in rent prices in Karratha in the last five years. Member for the Pilbara Kevin Michel said the State Government was aware of the cost of living troubles Karratha residents face and were working hard to deliver schemes that would address them. “We’re delivering a $400 household electricity credit with additional assistance for the most vulnerable members of our community, we’re increasing the Hardship Utilities Grant Scheme payments by 10 per cent, and we’ve limited increases to fees and charges to just 2.4 per cent — well below inflation,” Mr Michel said. “This Budget featured a $750 million package to boost housing supply and housing choice, particularly supporting those in need. “We’ve recently also announced reforms of WA’s tenancy laws to strengthen protections for renters and provide greater clarity for landlords.” Cr Long said he was confused by some of the community responses because for many areas, like financial management and mosquito control, the city performs well. “We (are) one of the best (councils) in the State for financial management according to all the indices,” Cr Long said. “We’ve got a lot of money saved for a rainy day. “Yet we’re regarded as poor in financial management. “We do what we can with the mosquitos. We go through all the standard control systems, making sure there’s no weeds yet we still get a poor mark on it. “So goodness knows, we do what we can and those ones never seem to improve even though they are our responsibility.” While the overall satisfaction score has increased steadily over the years, the number of people who have no intention to leave has declined from 41 to 38 per cent. Cr Long said he believed this was because the cost of living and price of housing in Karratha had increased so much. “We got to a peak of 41 per cent a few years ago and its dropped since then. My read on that is the cost of living has gone up substantially because there’s all new resource projects happening and the price of of accommodation has gone up remarkably,” he said. “Private rental values have gone up enormously and our average rental was over $900 and it was $300 five years ago.” Community surveys from previous years are viewable on the City’s website.