Manly Vale will receive some much-needed attention with a number of short and long-term plans underway to improve amenity, travel and liveability of the suburb.
Northern Beaches councillor Sarah Grattan and the Manly Vale Town Centre Working Group have developed a plan to address a lack of signage and general amenity of the area so it feels more like a home than a ‘thoroughfare’.
“Manly Vale is a small suburb that had been a bit forgotten,” Cr Grattan said.
“It’s sort of a thoroughfare with a great big road scurrying through the middle of it and the community there was feeling a bit neglected and wanted a town centre. It’s a bit hard to put a town centre when you’ve got Condamine Street splitting it and so we are workshopping some ideas.
“There’s not even a street sign that says welcome to Manly Vale so we were looking for some quick wins while we were looking to solve some of the longer term issues.”
Some of the short-term issues Cr Grattan said includes further signage throughout the suburb, beautifying various median strips with shrubs, widening local footpaths to allow further café seating and planting trees along Condamine St.
Northern Beaches Council has formed a Special Works and Transformation Team (SWAT) team to scope and carry out works such as repair and repaint street furniture, undertake graffiti removal on council assets, repair or replace damaged bins, fix paving trip hazards, undertake vegetation management and carry out high-pressure pavement washing along Roseberry St to tidy up the general area.
While these short-term issues are an easy fix, Cr Grattan and the working group have their eyes set on a number of other projects to make Manly Vale a vibrant community for local and visitors who utilise the suburbs facilities while visiting nearby attraction such as Manly Dam.
“Traffic gets completely jammed up from Bunnings, Woolies, Aldi, particularly on a Saturday morning, so we’ve asked for some funding from Transport for NSW to explore installing a signalised intersection instead of a roundabout on Rosebery St and Balgowlah Rd, rephasing of the lights at Condamine and Kenneth Rd and also additional right hand turn lane at Kenneth Rd,” Cr Grattan said.
“There’s also a great opportunity to create a community hub on the community centre side of the suburb which will really improve the suburb for residents and visitors.
“We are also looking to get funding for the Rosebery St cycleway.
“There’s some terrific ideas coming out of the working group and we are all excited to see what we can come up with.”
