THE TWEED Volume 2 #43 Thursday, July 8, 2010
Page 10
Advertising and news enquiries: Phone: (02) 6672 2280 editor@tweedecho.com.au adcopy@tweedecho.com.au www.tweedecho.com.au
LOCAL & INDEPENDENT
Police close in on prime Cudgen land Ken Sapwell
Karen’s Eliza dream comes true Tania Phillips
As a young teen at Kingscliff High School, Karen Oliver always dreamed of playing Eliza Doolittle, but it’s only now the talented musical performer will get her wish. Ms Oliver will bring the wonderful Eliza Doolittle to life in the Tweed Theatre Company’s new production of My Fair Lady at Twin Towns this weekend.
Karen Oliver as Eliza Doolittle in her Ascot finery. Photo supplied
Directed by respected Gold Coast show producer Tracey Kriz and costarring Peter Gray as the urbane, world-weary upper-class snob Henry Higgins, the show features a 36-member ensemble and some impressive costumes. But for Ms Oliver, who has just finished a stint with Gold Coast Little Theatre in Showboat and Curtains for Spotlight, it is a chance to finally get her vocal chords around those classic Lerner and Loewe songs ‘Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?’, ‘The Rain In Spain’, and ‘I Could Have Danced all Night.’ There’s also the thrill of speaking Bernard Shaw’s scintillating dialogue, much of which was left in the show when it was adapted from his classic play Pygmalion. And for the talented blue-eyed blonde with one of the most pow-
erful voices on the Tweed Coast, this production is a nice piece of synergy. ‘This was the first full-length show that I ever did. I was 13 and I really wanted to be Eliza. But I was too young to be the lead so instead I was the lady about town,’ she said of the Kingscliff High production back in the 1990s. ‘I always wanted to do the show and it never came around.’ That is, until now. The musical also reunites Ms Oliver with Tracey Kriz, who directed her in her first major senior role at age 15 in the Gold Coast production of Stop The World I Want to Get Off. My Fair Lady is on at Twin Towns, Tweed Heads, this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $25 ($20 concession) and can be booked on 1800 014 014.
The NSW Police Force is seeking to exploit a loophole in planning laws to establish a new police station on protected farm land at Cudgen. The move is the first serious challenge to the Cudgen plateau’s unique agricultural status since the Anglican Church lost a court battle to build a school on another nearby parcel of prime farming land about 12 years ago (see panel, page 2). Senior police say the station is an emergency facility which can be built on the site without the consent of Tweed council or the government if they can convince them that no other suitable sites are available. They are asking the council to go against its Local Environment Plan which prohibits subdivisions of less than 10ha to create a 1.5ha allotment for a new Kingscliff headquarters at a cost of $4.5 million. A development application lodged by consultants acting for the force, Newton Denny Chapelle, says the site was chosen after four alternative sites were deemed unsatisfactory, mostly because none was as close to the motorway. ‘The subdivision provides the minimum area necessary for the construction and operation of the station… and provides sufficient land for the continuation of the existing agricultural land use of the newly created adjoining lot,’ the consultants say. The application, which is on public
exhibition until July 14, is expected to trigger a swag of objections from community and environmental groups who have been involved in a long-running battle to save the redsoil plateau from development. It’s also being watched closely by other emergency service agencies who have been searching for a flood-free site to consolidate their operations in a so-called super-centre close to the geographic centre of the shire. Former long-serving Mayor Max Boyd, who was part of a 10-man study team which resulted in the government classifying the plateau as agricultural land of State significance, says he’s confident the government will uphold its own planning policies. ‘The land is recognised as being in the top 10 per cent of agricultural land in Australia and has been given the highest possible level of protection,’ he said.
Thin end of the wedge ‘This new application if approved will be the thin edge of the wedge for further urban development in an area which should be preserved for farming activities.’ The land subject to the subdivision application belongs to the Kingscliff Land Company (KLC) which purchased the 39ha site in a joint venture deal with Coles Myer for $4.5 million in 2004 but has since been unsuccessful in two attempts to rezone the land for houses and a retail centre. continued on page 2
ABN 82 087 650 682
<echowebsection=Local News>