Doyle’s 80 per cent loss of memory

Doyle’s 80 per cent loss of memory

By Shane Scanlan

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle can only remember 20 per cent of the first promise he made in the lead up to the 2012 council election.

In October 2012 he pledged that, if elected, Docklands would see a 12-month $500,000 trial of a free ferry running five times per day on weekdays between Collins Landing and NewQuay.

In 2013, the council budgeted $50,000 for a feasibility study but the rest of the promised funding has sunk without a trace.

Asked by Docklands News at the May 3 Future Melbourne Committee meeting whether Docklands could expect to see the remaining $450,000 during the last months of his term, Cr Doyle said he thought the pledge was for only $100,000.

Further, he thought that amount had been expended on a study into a suitable vessel.

“My memory was that it wasn’t $500,000,” Cr Doyle said. “It was more in the order of $100,000.”

“And my memory also, and I’m happy to be corrected, was that it was spent on a feasibility study of the principle barrier to such transport – that is a vessel.”

Cr Doyle said he thought the current Port Phillip Ferries commuter trial from the western suburbs had replaced the need for local, scheduled river transport.

“And my further personal view would be that the Little proposal has somewhat subsumed that,” he said.  “But that is, of course, a major transport option into Docklands from the west of Melbourne and beyond.”

“It doesn’t really cover inside Docklands water transport, in which I am still very interested,” he said. “So I think that’s where we are.”

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