Albury Council candidate Ashley Edwards wants to revamp concrete canals

Albury Council candidate Ashley Edwards received nearly 350 positive reactions and mostly favourable comments when she raised the suggestion on her Facebook page.

"It was actually a surprise to me that people were so interested," she said.

"A lot of people live near these concrete waterways, they drive past them, they walk past them."

Ms Edwards' daily walk past a nearby canal ("it's often full of rubbish and shopping trolleys") influenced her wish to revitalise the waterways, as did learning of a similar project in Melbourne.

"It just looked amazing, beautiful trees, vegetation ... a lot of the concrete is removed and replaced with rocks," she said.

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Earlier this year, Albury's councillors expressed their support for a proposal to cover up the concrete-lined Bungambrawatha Creek near Albury Botanic Gardens.

At the time, council chief executive Frank Zaknich said covering up the creek was one of a "number of visionary ideas" raised with consultants working on the Murray River Experience master plan for the city.

Deputy chief executive for infrastructure, planning and environment, Brad Ferris, told councillors the concrete, which was more than 30 years old, would have had a lifespan of 100 years when laid.

Ms Edwards welcomed the revamp of this section of Bungambrawatha Creek but hoped more canal areas could be included over time.

"This is a long-term plan, of course, it's not cheap to do these kind of works," she said.

"It would be great to have a long-term plan, rather than to replace them with more concrete or spend money on maintaining them, to renaturalise them and convert them into this natural look and feel."

Some concerns about potential flooding had been raised and the Greens candidate said any solution would still need to cope with stormwater.

"But we also get an opportunity to enjoy natural spaces where there wasn't any before," she said.

"I think it's something people want to see. Once you see it compared, what we have now and what it could be, people get really excited about what it could look like."

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