Please write to Councillors supporting the POM. Please write similar letter in support of the Plan of Management to Councillors at Lake Macquarie. Have a look at the damage done by Bulldozing for a cycleway path 2 metres wide! Tell your councillors that there is no place in the reserve for dogs. There are lots of places in Lake Macquarie for dogs, we even have compromised to have them in the Ross Street Entrance area at Black Jacks Point, but they must be kept out of the rest of the park.


Sunday, 15 October 2000
Councillor
Lake Macquarie City Council
Speers Point NSW

Dear Councillors,

Plan of Management and development of Green Point Foreshore Reserve

Green Point Reserve has a special pace in the hearts of all those people who have worked so hard to achieve the park for the people of Lake Macquarie. Parks and Playgrounds Movement has itself been vitally interested in the Reserve since the early fifties when the reserve was proposed by the Lake Macquarie Shire Council and the Movement.

The final acquisition of the Reserve by the Lake Macquarie Council and the one and a half million dollar funding from the State Government for the plan of management and initial work in the reserve have been greatly appreciated and are obviously supported by the community.

The aim has been to give every person who enters the Reserve a special or unique bushland and lakeside experience that is not available anywhere else in the region.

The Council's existing Plan of Management must be supported and strengthened by refining the detail of the plan for the main entrance, the parking area, the picnic areas and the Sea Eagle Lookout and its access.

The existing policy of providing the Ross Street area for dogs and excluding dogs from elsewhere in the reserve is in line with best practice for natural parks. The submissions to the review strengthened our judgment that the plan of management was relevant and must be sustained.

Furthermore the sub-categorisation of the Reserve into Bushland, Foreshore, Escarpment and Park and the statement of core objectives should be adopted.

The general layout of the foreshore walkway has proved very popular and the boardwalk through the rain forest remnant is very successful. The boardwalk presents the type of crisp sympathetic intrusion into a natural area that all development in the reserve should aspire to meet. We were dismayed and disappointed at the way the walkway connection to Sea-eagle lookout was bull-dosed without a plan.

It is imperative that properly adopted plans for all development activity in the reserve be prepared prior to development in future.

We ask you to strenuously support the existing plan of management, the sub-classifications proposed and the sensitive development of the Reserve in the future.