The Lord Mayor
Councillor John Tate and
Councillors of Newcastle City Council.

Dear Councillors,

Newcastle Heritage Tourism Plan must include
Coal River Convict Heritage Masterplan

I am disappointed with the way the tiny amount of money obtained for the Coal River Historic Site Heritage Masterplan has been squandered by council and we still don’t have a Coal River Heritage Masterplan.

I hate to think of all the effort I have expended over the past thirty years through the community and through the Parks and Playgrounds Movement in particular. We are on the eve of Newcastle’s 200th anniversary of its permanent settlement in 2004 and don’t have the Coal River Masterplan in place.

Cynthia Hunter’s well compiled preliminary document completed at a modest cost, has not been properly extended and used in the much more expensive latest document.

The coal mining settlement at Coal River is a significant turning point in the history of this place we call Newcastle. But we have a hole in our history at that point; this must be researched and made known and located on the ground.

The tangible focus is expressed in the Coal River Historic Site - Nobbys, Macquarie Pier, Fort Scratchley the Convict Coal Mines and the Convict Stockade Lumber Yard.

The site must be officially recognised as part of the convict fabric of Newcastle and identified and conserved.

The Movement proposed in our prospectus that a Heritage Master Plan be developed. This was so that Council could control the day-to-day operation of the whole site and obtain capital funding.

The Prospectus cost us over a thousand dollars in colour copying and distribution and was done because we are coming up to our 200th anniversary and because of the uncaring way the area has been treated by the various authorities in the past without knowing the significance of the area.

The Convict Stockade Lumber Yard is to a large extent an example of what not to do. It doesn’t make the most of its site and its presentation is not genuine. Unfortunately it was developed without input from people who had done the lobbying and understood the philosophy and significance of the site. These were the people unfortunately locked out of any consideration of how the area should be interpreted or developed.

A few points

* The Newcastle East Heritage Tourism Plan - discussion paper, must become a Plan.

* New thought or incisive understanding that extends knowledge is needed.

* The consultants missed the essential point that this is the eve of the 200th anniversary of the permanent convict settlement and a sense of urgency is needed.

* The arrival of the Convict system in Newcastle was the historic turning point in the story of Newcastle from the free ranging Aboriginal culture to the Convict system

* The next significant anniversary will be in another hundred years.

* The Consultants enjoyed their ride on the famous tram, which is a unifying element. The stories told on the bus need to be authenticated and expanded.

* There is a hole in the convict history of Newcastle that needs to be identified, researched and revealed.

* The initiative of Heritage Tourism focusing on Coal River has been lost in the document.

* Consultants see the wider city as not achieving its potential

* The discussion paper would have been improved with a good workshop session before it was finalised and printed.

* It could have been pulled together, reduced to a few pages and made into a usable plan.

* We need to understand where Newcastle fits, in the worldwide historic Convict theme and coal mining. In the case of the steelworks in the industrial revolution and technology.

* The Old Town document was a good document produced with no funds.

* Making a tourist product ideally should come after the identifying of heritage fabric and decisions on conservation.

* It is true that Heritage works best when it is in relation with other tourist products.

* People do visit the Macquarie Pier in thousands just for the pleasure of walking the walk. More people visit the breakwater than visit the heritage site of as Port Arthur in Tasmania.

* It is essential to register the area on the NSW Heritage list, have a Heritage Masterplan that incorporates the conservation Plans of Management for the Fort and Convict Lumber Yard and guides the day to day operations of the area.

* The Discussion document should have made the most of identifying Newcastle ’s Heritage and international links and set out ways of improving it and marketing it effectively.

* We hardly need a rundown on what we know already. The laundry list and no place to put it.

* Why would a consultant want to inform the council that the there are four precincts Civic ,Honeysuckle Newcastle West as well as Newcastle East?

* Our Visitor Centre should be at a nodal site, Newcastle Station or the current Museum site.

* The Report is really a veiled criticism that we make nothing of the city and we probably will end up doing the wrong thing anyway.

* Parks and Playground Movement would be prepared to occupy the back of the Station Masters Cottage and inform visitors about the Coal River Historic Site.

* Much of the Coal River period is buried and not visible the challenges are to revealed it and make it available to a wider audience in a sympathetic way as part of the experience of being here.

We are still in there John but I don’t think we have made much progress.

Yours sincerely,