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Wollongong City Council needs a stronger focus on the needs of baby boomers and seniors as it considers its future vision for the rapidly changing city centre. That’s the message in an IRT submission to the council’s Public Spaces Public Life strategy, which proposes to transform the area from the station to the foreshore with ideas like pop-up shops, food vans, giant games and ”public parklets” jutting out into now-dilapidated areas like west Crown Street. In an letter to the council, IRT Foundation Manager Toby Dawson said a stronger age focus was needed to “put Wollongong on the global stage for being an age-friendly city”. He said 17 per cent of residents in the city centre were over 65 and noted the proportion of baby boomers would “dramatically increase” in the coming years. However, the existing future plan did not include specific strategies to better meet the needs of the growing seniors demographic, he said. “While the draft plan clearly focuses on employees, families and the 24,000 students attending the University of Wollongong, it must also ensure that [the] city centre is age-friendly for the ballooning ageing population,” Mr Dawson’s submission said. Some of the strategies put forward include more seating, better access to public toilets, sloped gutters, and wide and non-slip surfaces. Medical centres, affordable housing shopping and other services should be clustered with good parking and transport access, and a satellite bus service complementing the free bus could help older residents living on the outskirts of the city centre, the submission said. ​Additionally, signage could have increased font sizes, and there could be more visual cues for foot traffic, while uneven footpaths should be given priority in the council’s public works budget to respond to the concerns of the senior community. As a city centre resident for the past 13 years, Yvonne Wilson has watched the CBD change dramatically. Now an IRT Links Seaside resident along with her husband Ron, Ms Wilson said she – like many older residents – had moved into the city to be close to shops, activities and services. “There are more businesses, retail and medical facilities and also things like the IPAC theatre and library, so that’s why a lot of old people move to the city,” she said. The life-long Wollongong resident said she had watched the city grow with interest, and particularly liked seeing more places to sit in the mall and city parks. “Also, the pathways now are all being attended to, and that’s really important for people who are not able to work well or for people with motorised vehicles,” she said.

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