Bridgetown… the end of the line for progress

trog•lo•dyte (ˈtrɒg ləˌdaɪt)
n.

1. a prehistoric cave dweller.

2. a person of degraded, primitive, or brutal character.

3. a person living in seclusion; hermit.

4. an extremely old-fashioned or conservative person; a reactionary.

5. an animal living underground. 

 

While the civilised world is moving ahead and experiencing progress and change, citizens of Bridgetown can feel safe living here, protected from modern improvements.

A little over ten years ago, when we first came to Bridgetown I marvelled at a story in the local paper about how money to widen and make safer Winnejup Road had to be returned to the State Government after locals successfully persuaded the Shire not to go ahead with the improvements because it would mean knocking down some mature trees on the side of the road.

“Look around, there is no shortage of trees!” I cried.

I often amuse incredulous friends in the city with my summary of how Main Roads wanted to spend millions to re-route the trucks around our main street, but because some locals protested the Shire held a referendum and even though the referendum result was a “yes” to the by-pass, they said “no” because the yes vote only won the count narrowly.

It was therefore entirely predictable that the Council would bend immediately to the will of the small group who didn’t like the idea of the National Broadband Network being rolled out here because the towers needed would be near their properties or would cause a few trees to be cut down.

One local resident summed up the prevailing mindset when he told the local paper: “It would be good if we could have faster internet without having the towers in town.”  An instant classic!

That’s Bridgetown… we’ll have improvements, but only if you promise nothing will change.

So we keep on knocking back millions of dollars offered to build us safer roads, better infrastructure and deliver state-of-the-art communications. 

But why worry, who needs the NBN when we have a brand new $4m library facility which allows people to go and borrow books? It might have been redundant as soon as it was built due to the internet, the Kindle and the ipad, but hey, that’s progress, Bridgetown style.