NORTHERN PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS MOVEMENT 38th ANNUAL REPORT 1990

NORTHERN PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS MOVEMENT

38th ANNUAL REPORT 1990

Members and friends,

This year has been an horrendous year with the earthquake. We have lost the use of our space in the Heritage Centre due to earthquake damage and our records and equipment have been dispursed.Greg Wright, our hard working secretary, was badly injured at the waterfall near Glenrock Lagoon after he had rescued two school girls who had fallen at the top of the falls.

We are thankfull that Greg has made a good recovery and is here with us. Our great supporter and close friend, Selby Alley has died. Tom Farrell,our longest serving committeeman, has been unwell following the death of his wonderful wife.There have been too many distressing events this year but we have survived and will continue on with your help.

This is my tenth Annual report to the Movement and I would like to think that the environment is safe with the heightened awareness that is about these days and with many environmentally conscious groups helping to ensure that we hand on to the next generation an environment that is in as good or better condition than when we came into it. Alas, the contrary is the truth and the years ahead will bring more difficulties.

Many of the proposals that we have generated in this Movement still await implementation even after years of work on the part of members.Constant vigilance and determination over many years is needed and the realization that conservation, is a continuous process.

Blackbutt for instance still needs close attention even after thirty eight years of hard work by members of this movement. The Newcastle City Council failed to ratify the Draft Management Plan that would have helped ensure that a Natural Reserve existed in the heart of Newcastle into the future. It is extraordinary that the council was unable to perceve that the caging of animals was peripheral to the need to protect the natural qualities of the Reserve.Whilst we don't have a management strategy that is directed to conserving naturalness in a professional way the future of the reserve is still not safe.

With respect to the caging of animals, the Movement this year initiated a study of zoological Gardens with the view of proposing a suitable site for a Hunter Regional Zoo that had State Government backing and which complemented the high standard of the work that has been done at Taronga Park in Sydney and the Western Plains Zoo at Dubbo. The substandard display of caged animals is demeaning to the animals and their viewers. A wombat displayed in a concrete and wire cage without any relationship to a natural environment is a notable example of what not to do.

This Movement believes that a regional zoo should not be a charge against the ratepayers of Newcastle or any other local government area, but funded by the State Government as is Dubbo and Taronga Zoos.Similar funding should be available to the Hunter Region Botanical Gardens and other regional recreational and educational facilities.

The Newcastle City Council is however congratulated for its efforts to instigate management plans for the many important parks under their control.

The documents that have been produced for the Harbour Foreshore the National Park, District Park, Jesmond/New Lambton Bushland and Blackbutt Reserve, and the Convict Archaeological site are to be applauded and constitute an important resource. The Glenrock SRA management plan which is to be released soon has been partlyfunded by the City Council. It should be noted here that it was the Newcastle City Council that initiated the Newcastle /Lake Macquarie Coastal lands study that provided the base official document for the Glenrock State Recreation Area which was proposed and supported by this Movement. We look forward to the implementation of these management plans.

No conservation project is brought to fruition by any one person or organisation it is so often the work of many individual groups working simultaneously, sometimes in union or serially sometimes even acting without knowledge of each other. It is important to let the Conservation Movement know what you are doing and help in whatever way you can. It is also need public authorities to prepare and collect authoritative independent studies as an information base for community action.

Because the Parks and Playgrounds Movement has such few resources it is essential that we all help.

The Movement deplores the recent political attacks against the United Residents Group for the Environment of Lake Macquarie.URGE is a genuine democratic community group established by the resolutions of a series of Public Meetings. It is an open community group and not a political party.

During Heritage Week 1987 (8/4/87) the Parks and Playgrounds Movement called a Public Meeting at Warners Bay which was attended by over 200 people . That meeting established a working party to co-ordinate the many interest groups with concern for the welfare of the Lake Macquarie Environment. The working party held many meetings to formulate a constitution.

Another public meeting was held on the 24th of July,1987, to officially launch URGE. Representatives of twenty community groups from around the Lake were in attendance as well as a number of local citizens: 200 people in all.

The recently announced URGE Foreshore Parks Proposal is the first step in the implementation of the unanimous concern expressed by the people at that inaugural public meeting of URGE on the 24/7/87.

"That pressure be brought to bear on all authorities charged with a responsibility for the Lake's welfare to ensure that large areas of open space around the lake foreshore are preserved in an ecologically sound state for future generations ".

Sydney has benefited for over one hundred years from two large National Parks, each 15000ha in area and only 20km distance from the city centre.There is not one reasonably sized Bushland Reserve fronting the nationally important Lake Macquarie or near the city of Newcastle.The opportunity for the establishment of a Park system similar to the Sydney Harbour, Botany Bay or Brisbane Waters National Parks on the foreshore of the Lake is fast disappearing.

Politicians, and political parties, should join with us and applaud URGE, and work for the Lake Macquarie integrated foreshore parks proposal that URGE has developed.

To its credit, the Labor Party has included the Green Point Bushland Park in their programme to expand National Parks in NSW when they next achieve government.

URGE has prepared two excellent editions of their foreshore parks proposal. It is a shame that there has been extensive clearing in the proposed Green Point Park which is an important part of the proposed foreshore park. We deplore this act of sabotage.

Not withstanding the excellent support from the community by petition of 16000 signatures, the professional Kinhill Report, the Forsite Report, the Council survey and the sterling work of the Green Point Action Group so much still remains to be done before the park is secured and rehabilitation commenced. The PWD and the West Lakes Sewerage Scheme are at present making an unfortunate impact on the Cardiff Point foreshore. This area is essential to the viability of the Green Point Park and must be restored as a matter of urgency.

The December 89 earthquake dealt a cruel blow to Newcastle and its citizens. Whilst millions of dollars of insurance money have poured in to repair earthquake damage, the city looks worse than it should.

Dreadfully stupid decisions were made by government agencies in the name of revitalisation. Instead of developing a positive programme to do something for the existing quake ravaged city, it was announced by Wal Murray Min.for State Dev. that a new heart would be built at Honeysuckle and the railway to Newcastle closed. Junction and Wickham schools are to be demolished.The Royal Newcastle Hospital down graded and demolished and the repair of the Customs House delayed. Miraculously, these sorts of decisions were supposed to cause vast building activity from casinos to high class hotels.

Such pie in the sky proposals do nothing for the city in its hour of need. It is counter productive to be talking about long range projects and new hearts when positive action was needed. There was the pretence that the people would be consulted but it became clear that their submissions were certainly not going to be heeded. It was as though NSW Inc. was determined to use the excuse of the earthquake tragedy to demolish buildings and sell off land in a fire sale. The government wasn't even able to acknowledge that there had been a disaster by proclamation. At the Commonwealth level it even took six months and a new environment Minister to answer correspondence sent urgently immediately following the earthquake. On the 4th of January, the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, promised to match State Government funding for the rebuilding of Newcastle. There is little evidence of this funding or rebuilding.

This region is expected to contribute, as it does, to the economic and cultural welfare of this state and commonwealth but is not allowed to share in the wealth it produces even in this time of need.

The Movement was quick to come to the aid of the people and helped with the first public meeting on the 31 of Dec. to form the Citizens' Earthquake Action Group (CEAG) which played a very important role in focusing public attention on the plight of the city and its citizens.

The Northern Parks and Playgrounds Movement quickly developed a proposal to complete the widely acclaimed Newcastle Harbour Foreshore Scheme and sent it immediately to the Premier and all our representatives.

Our proposal was firmly based on the winning design from the 1981 international competition for the Foreshore and could have been completed within a few months. It would have given the city's centre the lift it needed. Our positive proposal integrated a narrowed rail easement with a parkland corridor but it clashed with a secret NSW Inc. desire to cut the rail and sell the foreshore land regardless of the city's plight. This NSW Inc. proposal was presented during the year under the title, Newcastle CBD Transport and Development Study. It was disapointing that the Newcastle Council did not throw it's weight behind our proposal to implement the Foreshore scheme incorporating the railway corridor.

Instead of a worthwhile completed project that is being used and enjoyed by all the community, we have a fight to save the foreshore as well as the railway.

Now is the appropriate time to call for the full implementation of the 1981 Foreshore Scheme for the scenic landscaped railway corridor into Newcastle Station and the establishment of a Convict Stockade historic Site visually and physically linked to the magnificent historic Newcastle Station and Customs House.

We are resubmitting the Movement's longstanding claim for an Historic Site at Newcastle East. Preparation is well advanced and it will be submitted in conjunction with other groups. The proposal will be titled Convict Stockade, historic site, Newcastle, and will be based at the Lumber Yard site in Scott St. which is nationally significant as the only convict archaeological site of this nature and the focus of the convict beginnings of Newcastle: coal mining, port works, cedar cutting and early industry in the colony.

We envisaged the State Government and the City Council developing and promoting the Site as an important historical cultural and recreational attraction. Its relation to the business centre of the city can be likened to the Cadman's Cottage Historic Site at Circular Quay in Sydney. However, the Newcastle site is of far greater significance and deserves sympathetic interpretation and development and State and Federal funding.

The secret of improving the central core of the city will be found in making attractive and people orientated. The emphasis must always be placed on its advantages rather than continually looking for disadvantages to publicise. An attractive harbourside suburb must be established at Honeysuckle to replace the inner suburbs that have been lost in the past. Honeysuckle must not be developed in a way that will further undermine the embattled CBD. The Movement has adopted and supports the Hunter Region Community Forum's strategy for the revitalisation of Newcastle. The document is well presented and should be widely read and distributed.

The Movement has joined with other conservation groups up and down the coast to form an organisation called Coastkeepers. We have taken part in the Coast walk from the Queensland border to Sydney, meeting the walkers and accompanying them through our area. We also submitted details of the problem issues on the coast from Port Stephens to Wyong Shire which have been documented in the Coastwalk publication.

Finally, I would like to thank Greg Wright and Jack Shield in particular as well as my committee for their loyalty and support throughout the year.

I ask you to accept and adopt this 38th annual report.

Doug Lithgow, President

November 29, 1990

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Douglas Lithgow
Parks & Playgrounds Movement Inc