Service Level Enhancements

This article was written for the October edition of the Mitcham Community News.

Have you reported an issue to Council, like a tree maintenance request, a footpath defect and seen nothing happen for a very long time or at all? I hear about this often from residents. Council has set "service levels": the expected time to fix or address an issue, whether raised by the community or found through internal audits.

In a number of areas, these service levels weren't being met, resulting in a growing backlog and understandable community frustration. To that end, this Council has invested significant additional funding and resources into lifting service levels back to where they should be. This has been combined with a more data-driven approach to service delivery, improving efficiency so more gets done with the same resources.

There are two key areas where you can see the additional investment funded by your rates at work. The 24/25 rates funded an additional tree maintenance crew and 25/26 rates funded a second street sweeper. The sweeper and tree crew sit under Council's engineering and horticulture division, which has undergone substantial transformation over the past two years. Both investments have now been in place for just over a year, so we finally have enough data to show the impact of your rates in these areas.

Tree defects have dropped dramatically, from 1,102 in January 2025 to 245 in August 2026. For the first time, Council can now undertake "block pruning" proactive rather than reactive maintenance, working block by block to assess and treat trees before problems arise. Long-term, this won't just mean healthier trees; it will also reduce resident requests and lower risk.

Street sweeping has a service level target of sweeping each of the 10 precincts every 5–10 weeks. All precincts are meeting the service level, with a focus to further improve sweeping frequently and efficiency. Crews have been working a fixed cycle rather than one scaled to each precinct's size, requiring 12 sweeping days per fortnight to keep up. The focus now is on lifting daily productivity to reach a 6-weekly cycle, 8-sweeps per suburb each year.

Footpath defects remain one of my biggest frustrations, though efficiency gains are helping here too: 451 defects in January 2025 versus 139 in September 2026. Many high-rated defects, which should be fixed within roughly 90 days, still too long in my view, aren't meeting even that timeframe. I firmly believe this area needs additional resourcing to meet community expectations.

Part of the delay comes down to increasingly complex Work Zone Traffic Management (WZTM) requirements from the Department for Infrastructure and Transport (DIT) for any work on their roads. Arranging traffic control to safely fix defects is becoming harder and more expensive.

Bushfire Slashing Schedule

On a different note, Council's bushfire slashing program has started for another year, covering 560km of road verges and 140+ hectares of open space. For the first time, a detailed 12-week slashing schedule is available on Council's website, search "How Mitcham Council is preparing for bushfire" and look under "progress of our current slashing programs."