Page 8 - Best Of Local Mag October 2023 Edition

Mango Hill Locals Improving our Community

For many Mango Hill residents who regularly walk around our beautiful suburb, you may
not have recognised that a great many of the facilities that the Village has to offer have been
the result of many great initiatives of not only the Mango Hill Progress Association, but also
from local folk who have seen a need and then acted to makes things happen. One such area
of the Village is the local pond in Pinesyde St and its connection on the eastern side of the
village to Anzac Ave.

In 2014, when John and Linda Rayner (ex of Redcliffe) made the decision to retire from
Redcliffe to their new home in Pinesyde St, Mango Hill, they were only a “stones throw”
(100m) from Anzac Ave on the eastern fringe of the new “Park Vista Estate” which just a few
years earlier had been a sweet potato farm, grown by the Buchanan family and which now
has over 460 homes.

John Rayner quickly took an active interest in improving his new environment, recognising
that the adjacent flood retention “pond” was overgrown & choked with Salvinia weed and
that the local nature strip could be improved to provide access to a rough “bush track” that
existed between his house in Pinesyde St and Anzac Ave.

John took the initiative to approach Council through Council’s Call Centre in seeking Council
Staff assistance for a number of projects. The result is that (amongst others), the pond is now free of the salvinia weed and provides
a home to many birds, egrets, magpie, geese and varieties of ducks which now make the pond their regular home. John gives a lot
of credit to the local council staff who have worked so well with him and his neighbours in first clearing and now maintaining the
local pathway & nature strips where locals now take their daily walk.

After years of negotiating the rough “bush track” to Anzac
Ave, not only to buy the morning paper or purchase that
loaf of bread from the local “servo” on Anzac Ave, but to
improve the overall appeal and safety of the well used
track, and with the support of local neighbours (Jan &
Kevin along with Kerry and Mike), John lobbied former
Councillor Jullie Greer to improve this access to Anzac
Ave, also allowing he and others to access the bus stop
outside the “servo” on Anzac Ave.

With the ongoing support of current Councillor, Jodie
Shipway, that “bush track” was included in the 2022
council budget and is now a reality, providing a vital link
for a great many village residents who access Anzac Ave
and its local facilities.