Liz Levy’s letter about the Clifford Street and Broken Head Road intersection raises important questions about the money spen on designs and investigations.
But there is another part of this story that goes directly to the issue of community trust and good governance.
Deputy Mayor Elia Hauge, writing in The Echo this week, put it particularly well. She wrote of the ‘loss of community trust’ and the opportunity to rebuild it, arguing that community values need to be embedded throughout a project, rather than trying to retrofit trust after the damage is done.
That is precisely the lesson Suffolk Park learned through the Clifford Street traffic-light saga.
Council applied for grant funding for traffic lights at the Clifford Street and Broken Head Road intersection without first properly establishing whether the community wanted traffic lights.
When the community realised what was being proposed, there was an outcry.
A group called Keep the Flow in Suffo formed. A petition followed, representations were made to Council and eventually a meeting was held at the community hall with councillors. Ultimately, the traffic-light proposal was stopped.
For me, the critical issue was never simply traffic lights versus roundabouts. It was how the community was consulted.
We recognised very early that, whatever happened with Clifford Street, we could not repeat the consultation failures of the past. When an issue arrives, we don’t simply assume that a handful of people represent Suffolk Park. We seek the views of our members and the broader community.
The Clifford Street experience provides a very clear lesson for both Council and community organisations. Consultation cannot simply be about asking the community to endorse a decision that has already been made. It has to be about giving the community a genuine opportunity to influence the decision in the first place.
If we get that right, we don’t just make better decisions.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
