Hi John,
The Blue Mile, there is more to the City of Greater Wollongong than the Blue Mile and the CBD.
Forty Eight Million Dollars for one mile, what a joke!
"It is the economy, stupid" was the saying that adorned former American President Bill Clinton's desk.
David Farmer General Manager of Wollongong City Council along with Lord Mayor Darling could do worse than have on their desk in bold letters, a sign saying "It's the infrastructure, stupid".
Tourists, it appears are first in line , the community a very bad second. Dapto is self destructing with a road so grid locked, morning and night, that the people of Horsley and West Dapto are at breaking point.
The Fowler's Road Bridge has been on the drawing board for over twenty years, in an ALP controlled ward.
Councillors from Dapto way can talk the talk but there is NO evidence that they can or have ever walked the walk.
Infrastructure is dirty word in this most neglected of suburbs.
The residents of that forgotten part of Wollongong will at last see some direct action with the advent of the North South Coalition taking up the issue for and on behalf of this forgotten precinct of Wollongong.
The residents in desperation have called out for help.
North South Coalition have responded.
The bridge is not the only issue, there is the process of lack of quality community consultation, that Dapto takes its rightful place in wanting infrastructure put in place before one sod is turned for the Blue Mile or any other acts of delusions of grandeur.
By the way, the time has come for Dapto, and surrounds to have Councillors who can walk the walk.
I support John Bown and his very fine raising of the issue of Dapto.
Trevor Mott,
Keiraville.
Hi Andrew
Given that town planning problems are No 1, the failure of the Dept of Planning to effectively engage with our communities in regard to its proposed planning laws (Bill due mid-year?) effectively sidelines all of our interests.
Wollongong City Council has been happy to submit a Council Officer-only view, also sidelining concerned community voices (on the basis - as I was told at my Ward Councillor forum last evening - it is up to the Dept of Planning to do the community consultation).
It is clear that there needs to be something of a peoples movement to make sure that peoples voices are heard in relation to what reforms we want to the planning laws.
I attach my submission for your information*. I make several recommendations - the first of which is to extend the deadline for submissions and to have a round of community consultation (via Council's community engagement framework) which actually engages the Mums and Dads the politicians glibly invoke in order to promote their own narrowly conceived agenda.
Bruce Reyburn
Coledale
* Too long to be published here - ac
"In the Aussie tradition of always supporting the underdog my heart tells me to say “go for it Yahoo” but my head tells me its days of being a stand-alone company are numbered."
In my long life I have seen businesses which were household names if not institutions disappear - like Farmers, Mark Foys and others, along with government institutions like the Rural Bank, the Commonwealth Bank, the Government Printing Office [who prints Hansard now?] being sold off, privatised, split up [PMG] then part sold off [Telstra].
Like the jungle out there, it is the survival of the fittest.
P Ferguson
Berkeley
Since the abolition of Neighbourhood Committees [was that 2005?] nothing seems to have replaced them - though some of the original committees survived and continue to meet.
Another institution that is in danger of going the way of the Dodo are Neighbourhood Watch groups. Woonona, Balgownie, Berkeley and Albion Park Rail are still going. I believe there is a well organised one in Farmborough Heights, but have no details.
P Ferguson
Berkeley
Dear Editor,
As shown on Stateline, Frank Sartor and his concern for Mums and Dads over the Planning Reform System is completely out of touch with the reality of having a next door neighbour.
Just exactly who are these Mums and Dads that he animatedly monotones on about? Mr and Mrs Corporation Developer? Who the hell thinks a development for an extension below $100,000 is cheap?
I have had neighbours tell me how my property would be better off if I listened to their advice to make them happy. This had absolutely nothing to do with any development application, it just had to do with my garden. If you cut that bush back... if you cut that palm tree down... if you didn’t have your fire wood in your front yard... etc.
A letter I have shows one neighbour wanted a written guarantee from a fencing contractor that I wouldn’t put in any vines that would affect the new fence! Is that just plain nuts or what? Another neighbour poisoned a beautiful jasmine hedge between our places, without consulting me. I would have said no, but it was legally regarded as a fence!
Frank Sartor’s own wife got a development stopped next to her own place. So why is anyone else different?
We all have the right to live a private, peaceful existence on our property. We therefore have the right to make sure that nothing impedes that right.
Alan Bond
Dear MPs,
It seems selling off the NSW electricity retail outlets and leasing the power plants is not a foregone conclusion if the public opposition is anything to go by.
Mrs Hay will no doubt have been invited to this meeting, but as it is a state issue Mrs George and WCC councillors may not, but I do urge you to attend to gauge public feeling on this. I am certainly against it.
Cordially,
Mrs P Ferguson
Berkeley
Dear Editor,
Illawarracoal should be congratulated for admitting that the cracks appearing in the catchment areas are the result of their coal mining. Unfortunately their spinning doctoring after that features big enough cracks to fall through.
They say there is no loss of water to catchments, but how do they know that ground water has not been redirected?
Just how can they tell that water that flows down a creek or from an underground source is different to ground water in a mine? Surely, when it gets into a mine it will have the ground water criteria from wherever it comes. Even putting a dye in to follow assumed courses can offer no guarantees as it and traceable substances would be filtered out by the earth. That’s if they use this method of pollution.
They say the many cracks (how many are there?) will reduce over time, filling with sediment and leaf litter. Leaf litter?! Leaves that rot? Definitely the Nobel Prize for Science on that one.
A recent Mercury article stated that no one apparently knew how deep the cracks were. How do they know if they are filling to the bottom?
Illawarracoal offer facts but don’t say how many cracks and how deep they are, width or length.
Releasing one iota of methane gas into the air should not be tolerated. We can liken it to drink driving results.
Do they recycle the mine water or pump it back into the catchment?
Alan Bond
Dear Editor,
Despite what Water Minister Nathan Rees says, it is a farce regarding the $1.9 billion desalination plant. The State Government panicked when the level of the dams didn’t even get to the 30 per cent capacity for building the desalination plant, it got to an average of 33 per cent which doesn’t mean they were all 33 per cent.
The Woronora Dam was never much less than 50 per cent capacity in all this drought period. I know, I would go and look at it. Woronora Dam has received 200mm in the week ending February 7, according to the Sydney Catchment Report. Cataract Dam is full and overflowing.
As for water harvesting and such panic, we are not a third world country despite what our governments and authorities try to make us think. We don’t need to drink our recycled toilet water.
The State Government has made a massive mistake on the desalination plant, instead of gradually building more dams, even out west. Why? Because we are located in one of the best drinkable water supply areas in the world.
It will always rain, according to the laws of Nature, not what humans with limited thoughts may think happen.
Alan Bond | 
