The consequence is a growing culture of youth anti-social behaviour.

So I say this to all concerned residents – your council has been holding Section 94 money for more than 15 years now and you are entitled to expect your fair share.

A Section 94 is basically a tax or charge by the council.

Generally, the developer pays this upfront, and collects it back by charging a little more for each block of land sold.

The council collects this money to build infrastructure in the new community and surrounding areas – cycle ways, playgrounds, ovals, roads, etc.

After 15 years, the community should well ask, “where is our share?”

Let’s consider laneways.

If they were well lit and frequently patrolled, they might suffer less graffiti and drug use.

In fact, frequent patrols in general, by council rangers, could deliver an income windfall to council.

Q: What has been done to improve policing times in the West Wallsend, Cameron Park and Edgeworth areas?

The issue that runs parallel with anti-social behaviour is the amount of Section 94 contrib-utions that have been collected by the Lake Macquarie Council that still hasn’t been spent in the Cameron Park area.

Homes that have been built in the past 15 or so years have made Section 94 contributions and yet their children have grown up in the area with no benefit from those contributions.

If the developers of this area have made the contribution to council, then it would be fitting for the council to allow these contributions to be spent by way of football fields, playgrounds etc or spend the money addressing much of the anti-social beha-viour throughout the area.

Much of the graffiti and problems associated with the laneways in the area have bad lighting and council has a policy of not lighting laneways, maybe some of the Section 94 contributions could be utilised to remedy this problem.

As policing and lack of infrastructure have been the main two concerns raised with me over the past two years, I think that it is timely now to discuss these issues.