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october 9 2013 www.newcastlepost.com.au
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Wildlife under threat
GALLERY OUTRAGE Gallery directors from across the region have expressed their disappointment over reports that the director role at Newcastle Art Gallery could be facing the axe as part of Newcastle City Council’s restructure, endorsed by councillors last month. Reports surfaced early last week that the restructure would involve amalgamating the art gallery director role with the Newcastle Museum director ...
Whitebridge conservation land sale has residents up in arms Amelia Parrott
W
hitebridge residents are up in arms over the State Government’s plan to sell off a parcel of conservation zoned land next to the Fernleigh Track. The land lies between residential zoned land at 14 Lonus Avenue, opposite Whitebridge High School and the Fernleigh Track. Lonus Avenue resident, Carmen McCartney, said the two hectare site is part of a significant green corridor along the popular walking and cycling track. “The residents’ concern is that [the land] will be developed and that their community will be affected by the development,” Dr McCartney said. “But there are a lot of people who understand that the whole area is a wildlife corridor and breaking down that wildlife corridor prevents any biodiversity from happening, it ends up with fragmented populations and we end up losing those species because we lose the land.” Federal Member for Shortland, Jill Hall, State Member of Wallsend, Sonia Hornery , Charlestown Duty Member of the Legislative Council, Lynda Voltz and Lake Macquarie councillors last week met with residents in Lonus Avenue, where State-owned land has already been sold off for development, to release the draft Fernleigh Track Conservation Area Protection Bill 2013 for public discussion. The bill will be introduced to the Legislative Assembly this month and if enacted, will prevent the sale or disposal of any land along the Fernleigh Track that is zoned conservation, without the approval of
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Shortland MP, Jill Hall, Charlestown Duty MLC, Lynda Voltz, Wallsend MP, Sonia Hornery and Whitebridge resident, Carmen McCartney, inspect conservation zoned land at risk of development along the Fernleigh Track.
both Houses of the NSW Parliament. Ms Voltz said the bill would encompass other parcels of conservation zoned land along the Fernleigh Track set aside for the East Charlestown Bypass project. “This is much bigger than 14 Lonus Avenue and the [conservation zoned] land that we have identified stretches for a couple of kilometres along both sides of the track,” she said. “If the Government had said, ‘We’re going to sell off the land zoned residential,’
they would not have had the public outcry but their decision to sell off great tracks of conservation land, that really concerned the local residents.” State Member for Charlestown, Andrew Cornwell, said the bill was well meaning but flawed. “This bill would be prohibiting the implementation of the Lake Macquarie Cycleway Strategy,” he said. “It took seven years to get land title sorted out for the Wallsend Cycleway so to do the same in Lake
Macquarie would just add another layer of complexity and slow down the implementation of community infrastructure.” Mr Cornwell said Lake Macquarie City Council passed a motion in April to extend environmental zoning along the Fernleigh Track to the back of residential blocks but added his office would be happy to act as a conduit between any concerned residents, the Roads and Maritime Services and the Council.
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