Council's got mail

MOLESWORTH residents will converge on the Derwent Valley Council Chambers tomorrow night (Monday) to hand-deliver their concerns about having their properties renumbered without consultation. Four Glen Dhu Rd residents attended a council workshop last Thursday to let councillors know of their concerns. General manager Stephen Mackey advised those present that he had invited affected property owners to a meeting at 7pm on Monday.

About 40 residents of the 7.5km long Glen Dhu Rd had recently been advised that their property numbers had changed. It is claimed that most had no knowledge the change was happening until they received a letter from the council in their now incorrectly numbered boxes.

Mr Mackey said an error had been found in the Glen Dhu Rd numbering, leading to a complete review which had identified that "predominantly all were incorrect."

Sue MacLaurin said her house number had been allocated in 1996 when the new system of rural addressing was introduced. It remained unchanged for nearly 15 years but had now been changed twice since December. She said the renumbering had caused confusion for mail deliveries and the local Census collector, particularly as some of the new numbers were not consecutive.
 
Councils throughout Australia and New Zealand follow a common standard for rural addressing based on the following principles:

• A property's distance along a road determines its address number
• Odd numbers on the left, even numbers on the right
• For every 10 metres, the number goes up by one