Residents in the north Beechboro area can finally call their suburb Bennett Springs after a year long successful campaign led by West Swan MLA Rita Saffioti.

The new suburb of Bennett Springs includes the estates of Orchid Park and Bennett Springs and also includes the portion of West Swan that is west of Lord Street.

Ms Saffioti said local residents should be proud of their achievement in successfully having their suburb name changed.

“During street corner meetings in the area many residents raised the issue of the suburb name with me and asked me to start a campaign to have the name changed to Bennett Springs,” Ms Saffioti said.

“Residents told me that when they first purchased land in the new estate they were told by developers that the suburb name would change.”

With this information and strong arguments for the name change, Ms Saffioti conducted a survey of the area, as required by the Geographic Names Committee.

“I conducted a survey of every household in the Orchid Park and Bennett Springs estates in April, 2010. I had an overwhelming response, with 97 per cent supporting my proposal to change the suburb name to Bennett Springs,” Ms Saffioti said.

The survey had a response rate of over 35 per cent.

Ms Saffioti said because of the success of the survey she was able to progress the proposal by gaining support from the City of Swan.

“Once City of Swan supported the proposal all that was needed was the final approval from the Geographic Names Committee,” she said.

“This took longer than expected, but the approval has finally arrived.”

Ms Saffioti thanked the residents that supported her campaign and took the time to complete the survey.

“This has been a great achievement for the Bennett Springs community,” she said.