By Kirra Livingstone
It’s a red letter day for residents of Mountainview Place, Glass House Mountains and Mountain View Place, Beerwah.
Two streets with the same name just a few kilometres apart resulted in months of disruption and angst for residents who had to deal with wrong deliveries, including truckloads of gravel, not to mention misplaced mail.
Residents became so adept at the disruption they were even arranging regular mail swaps at the local pub just to get deliveries sorted.
It followed a council decision to name a new Beerwah road the exact same name as a Glass House Mountains road, which had been in existence since 1994.
Initially there was a slight difference in the names, with a space between ‘Mountain’ and ‘View’ at Beerwah.
However council inexplicably decided in March this year to also add a space between ‘Mountain’ and ‘View’ at the Glass House location.
The situation could have continued indefinitely were it not for Glass House resident Vikki Bartel, who was having none of that bureaucratic nonsense, and embarked on a personal crusade for action.
This week the Council finally agreed it could have handled things better, backflipping on the double-up and renaming the newer Beerwah road ‘Mountain Breeze Place’ – effective immediately.
GC&M News, which had helped start the ball rolling for Vikki back in January, was delighted to get a phone call from her on Tuesday advising of the victory.
“I was beyond excited,” she said. “I was overjoyed, I was ecstatic, not because they’re going to have their name changed, but because the problem is now solved.”
Although the situation had been a headache for residents, she said everyone had worked together to try and make it work while the cogs of local bureaucracy slowly started turning in their favour.
The issue began in January 2022 when Vikki started receiving unexpected deliveries of construction goods such as gravel, concrete and pool fencing, just as her own deliveries dried up. She first contacted the council in mid-January and from there began a “wild goose chase” across various departments as she sought a common sense resolution.
“It took me about 40 minutes to get to the right department, but I hung on, and I sent off the first email and they came back and said we haven’t had this problem before,” she said.
“How the hell are people supposed to complain.”
Great lengths had to be taken by residents of both streets to ensure they could get their mail, and thanks to both streets being so honest, there were never any issues of stolen or missing mail.
“We’ve got a businessman who collects their mail from the Beerwah pub because his opposite resident works at the pub,” she said.
“And there’d be a phone call and they’d do their exchange… at least that person did the right thing, but they shouldn’t have to do that.”
Although the street name in Beerwah hasn’t had its name changed on the street sign yet, the Mountain Breeze Place residents have been made aware of the change.
“It’s never been their (delivery drivers) fault, it’s never been the Beerwah residents’ fault, the fault lands, or did land, squarely on the council,” she said.
