Who's Surprised? Not I.

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Several times in this blog I have said that the City of Perth has no intention of or interest in agreeing to take the whole of the City of Vincent.

Well, now it's official. Not only does it not want the whole of Vincent (as the City of Vincent Council has been pushing for), it doesn't even want quite as much as the Premier had proposed - it doesn't want the largely residential area between Bulwer and Vincent Streets, but does still want all the areas with what it sees as major assets.

The City of Perth Council Agenda for last Tuesday included the following:
Northern boundary to follow Bulwer/Summers Streets rather than Vincent/Walcott Streets to address concerns about the dissection of the Beaufort Street shopping precinct, and to recognise it as a more definitive delineation of land-use and demographics.

Thus it uses the logical argument about Beaufort Street to divest itself of what it sees as residential encumbrances.

http://www.perth.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/events/Special_Council_Agenda_130926.pdf

In what is a dead giveaway about the nature of its asset grab, it states:
The proposed boundary incorporates a number of the more significant recreational and community facilities that fit within a Capital City context because of the regional nature of these facilities. Such facilities include: 
- Leederville Oval. 
- Loftus Centre. 
- Nib Stadium

I'm not at all sure that Leederville Oval (at least I'm pleased to see they still call it that rather than M******k S*****m) or the Loftus Centre are truly regional - but we certainly know that Beatty Park is regional (ie its users come from a wide area of Perth), so why isn't that included in their grab?