NEWS
Lord Mayor Graham Quirk has welcomed the start of remedial work on the Walton’s building in Fortitude Valley several weeks after City Council issued its owners with a demand calling on 65 problem areas to be rectified.
Cr Quirk in a media release said the work came after he had “intervened to end the 20-year issue” and followed his “stern talks with representatives for the old Walton’s building ... to have the decaying property cleaned up”.
Over several days and nights recently, workers removed the dilapidated Walton’s sign and repainted the upper Brunswick Street façade. Cr Quirk said the owners also planned to continue addressing a number of the other 64 issues raised by council. That included a proposal to clean and restore the building’s street-level marble façade of the building and repair decaying awnings.
Describing the work as “a good start”, Cr Quirk said that while council had no legislative power to force building owners to rectify amenity issues such as peeling paint and dirty walls, he would continue to put pressure on the owners of Walton’s until all issues were rectified.
“In the last couple of months I’ve made it very clear that the Valley needs to be cleaned up and I will not accept building owners willingly allowing their properties to look shabby or fall into a state of disrepair,” he said.
“I want Brisbane to be a clean and green city that takes pride in its appearance and the Valley is no exception. “I am pleased that building owners are beginning to realise that I mean business and hopefully we can continue with our constructive approach of meeting with them to discuss issues rather than changing the law and having to fine them.
“However if that’s what I have to do to get the Valley cleaned up then I will go down that road.” Cr Quirk said he had also met recently with a number of Valley building owners and stakeholders to discuss the Valley’s amenity in general and had expressed his desire to work with them to bring the iconic shopping and entertainment strip back up to standard.
In a sign of council’s cooperative approach, work was also recently undertaken to clean up the service lane neighbouring the Walton’s building (Overells Lane), including resurfacing the road, removing graffiti and installing additional lighting, Cr Quirk said.
