Embarrassing blunder sees road resurfaced around parked cars
A Melbourne council has been left red-faced after a crew of contract workers made the astounding decision to resurface a residential street while cars were still parked along the roadside.
Residents of McBryde Street in Fawkner, Melbourne, were rightly a little surprised to see the clumsy results of the attempted improvements – with the likely cause being the fact that a letter of notification was sent only a few short days before the works were scheduled to commence.
It seems that not everyone living on the street received the notification in time, with contractors rolling up to discover several cars still on the street.
Instead of delaying the works or requesting the vehicles be moved, the extraordinary decision was made to carry on regardless – and lay the brand new bitumen right around the still-parked cars, with embarrassing results.
“It just looks a bit stupid,” said local resident Patt Gibbs to 9News at the time. Neighbour Monica Hodgkinson agreed, saying that “The street is probably in a worse state than it was to start with. It’s disappointing, because now the street is a mess.”
After admitting being in the wrong, a Merri-Bek City Council spokesperson said in a statement: “We took the opportunity to complete these works more quickly when resources were available, which resulted in less notice being provided to residents. We apologise to residents for the inconvenience.”
The spokesperson went on to say that workers will return to complete the works during the summer period, but gave no official date.
Images: 9News