City of Bunbury rescinds motion to move Foodbank WA Bunbury headquarters to the Withers Community Library

The City of Bunbury has rescinded the motion to move Foodbank WA’s Bunbury headquarters to the Withers Community Library, officially ending the saga which lasted for more than four months. The Save Withers Library Action Group gathered at the council chambers for the council meeting on Tuesday night in one last push to secure their library’s future. Foodbank WA had already withdrawn its interest in moving to the centre at the beginning of the month after facing major community backlash, but the protectors of the library wanted the motion revoked to prevent the resurrection of the plans in the future. After deputations from group members Jodie Lark, Martine Combret and chair Betty McCleary, councillors unanimously voted to rescind the motion from December last year. A report on the operational and resourcing needs related to returning the library to pre-COVID service levels will also be presented to the council by city executives within three rounds of meetings. Any further move to extend the opening hours, servicing or resourcing of the library would first need to be considered in the city’s budget. Mayor Jaysen Miguel told the Times he was pleased the proposal had been put to bed. “Council, as was pointed out tonight, never goes out to try and upset a community or upset partners of the community,” he said. “There was a potential opportunity which we thought could work really well, that hasn’t come through for various reasons, but obviously the decision now is that library will be remaining open.” He said the Withers community had “certainly been heard” and he appreciated they had been “respectful from the get go”. “The city wants to work with community groups the whole time, so hopefully we can continue to work here for a really good, positive outcome,” Mr Miguel said. Ms McCleary said “the community power was absolutely evident” at the meeting. “They (the community) can make a difference with local government and may they take heart in knowing that if they’ve got a problem, if they don’t understand something, they can write in, they can talk to people and we can do something about it,” she said. “Councillors were extremely respectful and listened, and did their research — I want to thank them very much.” Ms McCleary said one of the major positives was the community had been brought together and the action group could now be utilised as a tool to represent Withers in the future.