Charge footpaths at full market price
I recommend that Gosford Council does not permit fixed or removable footway dining weather protection structures to stand on public footpaths and that council applies the user-pays principle and collects for the public revenue the full market rental value as defined by the Australian Property Institute for every square metre of public footpaths exploited for private profit.
In assessing the true market rental value, council should take into account what business owners know very well, i.e. that a metre square on the footpath adjacent to a business property has a greater rental value than the best metre square inside the property.
The rent from public land used for private commercial business should return to the wider community.
It should not be seen as a gift of unearned profit to business.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption might condemn revenue avoidance by council.
Gosford Council pays a big publisher good money to inform the public of council's activities and services.
Every Wednesday two tabloid pages of council's information are included with up to 140 other pages of news and advertising and thrown on the public footpath.
On August 19, each parcel of this material weighed 400 grams.
The publisher claims a circulation of over 130,000.
On August 22, the publisher circulated another 127,000 copies of similar material each weighing 430 grams, much of it thrown on public footpaths.
Council is paying a publisher which appears to be causing about eight tonnes a week to litter public footpaths while smaller publishers use letterboxes.
Gosford Council offers a better, cheaper advertising service to business than the big publisher.
Every year council slips private business advertising material in with the annual rate notices posted to 70,000 ratepayers at council's expense.
Not dumped on the footpath, not just put in a letterbox and ignored.
It is virtually guaranteed to get right onto every ratepayers kitchen table.
John Collins, Woy Woy
24 Aug 2009