Southern Peninsula
Features inside HEALTHY LIVING PAGES 36–37 FOOD AND ENTERTAINMENT PAGES 39–43 SOUTHERN PENINSULA SCOREBOARD PAGES 46–47
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18 October – 31 October 2012 Your fortnightly community newspaper covering Safety Beach to Portsea For advertising and editorial needs, call 1300 MPNEWS (1300 676 397) or email: team@mpnews.com.au www.mpnews.com.au
Rye comes out to play
Plan to succeed: Barry Swayn, Jacqui Salter, Georgie Keach, Miranda Gillespie and Caleb Dawson, 4, of the Rye’s Up! campaign take calls from interested volunteers to fill work rosters for the Rye Community Playground building project. Picture: Yanni
HUNDREDS of volunteers are being marshalled in the final frenzied days of the campaign to build an adventure playground at Rye. More than two years in the planning, the nautical-themed playground will be built by the community over five days beginning Wednesday 24 October. Project coordinator Miranda Gillespie said there was a “last minute panic� to fill the rosters but the mood in Rye was “warm and fuzzy� and excited. “I can’t believe the time to build is actually here,� she said. The Rye’s Up! Community Playground, designed by Leather Associates, a United States company that specialises in communitybuilt playgrounds, will replace the playground on the foreshore near Rye pier. The existing equipment will be removed Friday 19 October and some of it reused at other Mornington Peninsula Shire reserves. The new playground began to take shape more than two years ago when children were asked what their “dream playground� would look like. The nautical theme was adopted to suit the foreshore site. Continued on Page 3.
Extreme fire area grows By Jo Winterbottom A BIGGER part of the southern Mornington Peninsula has been declared an extreme fire danger area for the coming fire season. Large areas of Sorrento and Portsea will be included on the extreme danger map for the first time this year. Blairgowrie and the part of Rye from White Cliffs to Canterbury Jetty Rd will again be classified an extreme risk, as they were last summer. The CFA has called a public meeting
in Sorrento on Saturday 28 October to discuss the extreme danger rating. Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley told a public meeting in Blairgowrie that Victorians had to accept that bushfires were now a threat every summer. “Our research has told us that it may take years before the Victorian community comes to terms with the annual threat of bushfires,� he said. Concerns over a helter-skelter flight to Port Phillip beaches were raised at
the meeting earlier this month. While Mornington Peninsula Shire had designated 12 Neighbourhood Safer Places where residents can marshal as a “last resort� during a bushfire, Mr Lapsley said many residents would wait until the danger was extreme, then head for beaches, causing potentially catastrophic traffic jams and other safety concerns. “We will need to do further work to establish how this [evacuation to beaches] could be done safely,� he
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high-risk areas, especially for families with young children and the elderly, would be to leave the peninsula the day before a declared code red or extreme fire danger day. He singled out the area between Melbourne Rd and Mornington Peninsula National Park, which is packed with holiday houses, as of “major concern to our fire fighters� and said permanent residents had an important role to play in educating visitors. Continued on Page 8.
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