THE BYRON SHIRE
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Volume 29 #43 Wednesday, April 8, 2015 Phone 02 6684 1777 Fax 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au www.echo.net.au 23,200 copies every week
Inside this week
What to do? check out pages 15-17 I LOVE A SUN-POWERED COUNTRY
CAB AUDIT
Bluesfest Where’s Northern Rivers The price for civilisation is tax Rail Trail announce in pictures your arts? – p28–29 – p20 next stage – p7 – Mungo p10
Gig guides that bite – p31
Rudd heads down the Bluesfest rabbit hole
Another big Easter event for Byron Shire wrapped up Monday, with the 26th Bluesfest being held at Tyagarah. It hosted 89 bands, a total of 908 artists and their tour party members, and reported 105,000-plus attendances over the the long weekend. All the way from up the road, Xavier Rudd was one of a number of local musicians to perform. Both he and Ash Grunwald made their distaste for CSG mining unambiguously clear. Photo Jeff ‘In Blues Wonderland’ Dawson
Byron Shire Council Notices Page 41–42
Aerial survey set to assess disused rail line Luis Feliu
A helicopter survey of the entire length of the disused Casino to Murwillumbah railway line will be undertaken on Friday in a bid to prove the line is in a much better condition than the state government purports it to be. The NSW government has relied on reports it commissioned to rule out rail as a response to public transport needs. One of the many criticisms of its rail report was the lack of a comprehensive assesment of the 132km line. So far, the government has indicated it intends to provide no alternative public transport other than more buses. Currently the public asset is in the process of being handed over to a trust to manage as a rail trail. The survey, starting from Casino, has been organised by community organisation the Northern Rivers Railway Action Group (NRRAG), which backs the introduction of a continued on page 2
When in doubt, request a report! Hans Lovejoy
With all the roads and large-scale developments planned for Byron Bay, Council staff have requested a $50,000 budget be allocated for a traffic study to ‘determine construction priorities on Ewingsdale Road.’ To be voted on at Thursday’s Council meeting in the Mullumbimby chambers, the report would
aim to ‘Determine the priority order for the construction of intersection upgrades on MR545’. What’s an MR545? It’s bureaucratic code for the two roads which run into Byron CBD (Ewingsdale Road) and Broken Head Road, which runs from the town towards Lennox Head. Staff say roundabout modelling along Ewingsdale Road is needed, as is assessing ‘the impact of the
rezoning proposal for seniors living and commercial development at Ewingsdale.’ The last traffic study, of which there are many, was conducted in 2009 by consultants Opus. But the application for a traffic study by council staff has been questioned by the Byron Residents Group and Butler Street residents. Paul Jones from the Butler Street
Community Network said, ‘Council is proceeding with Butler Street bypass with out-of-date and inadequate traffic modelling. Setting up a traffic model is a substantial undertaking and if they are to proceed with new studies then why not update the data and predictions based on RMS guidelines and new proposed populations for West Byron?’ ‘West Byron developers paid for
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their own traffic modelling, so why are the development proponents for Ewingsdale’s seniors living/commercial not required to pay for their traffic impact ‘Why would Council be investigating a roundabout at Kendall Street [which runs to Belongil off Ewingsdale Road] if it were not to allow a bypass link along Byron Street road continued on page 3
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