Letters Where is the love? I have lived in Mullum and the surrounding hills for 35 years. Yesterday I drove to Upper Main Arm, to Kohinur, to visit a friend, and I have never seen a place so devastated as what I saw yesterday. Seeing my own house full of mud was traumatising, but yesterday I was saddened, stunned and confused as to how Main Arm has been left like this, I imagine Upper Main Arm is even worse... To Kohinur the causeways are open, but the sides are still coverd in smashed concrete and tree debris, little pieces of smashed everyday things, and small pieces of everything, including cars. Nobody could heal memories of driving past this every day. It extends into a lot of people’s properties. Their clean-up is overwhelming and they’re on their own. Meanwhile, outside my property in Mullumbimby, Byron Shire Council (BSC) is cleaning up the sides of the bitumen with a heap of machinery and roadbase for parking. I also noticed Myocum Road got new bitumen this week. Come on town! Where is the logic? Come on community groups, don’t go plant trees, don’t go clean up the beach, go clean up Main Arm! No offence intended to any of our amazing community or BSC for the effort they have put in since the big flood. C Sheffield Mullumbimby
Value of the intangible It’s hard to know what value to place on the environment – until it changes irrevocably. A place is defined by its aesthetic and in the case of Clifford Street, for instance, it is the black-green of the coastal cypress canopy that determines Suffolk Park as being separate to Byron, distinct from Broken Head, different to Lennox. Those trees are visual signifiers of this place and as a threatened species, everything possible should be done to protect them – they are the guardians of a fragile ecosystem. Everything is connected – we forget that. Only small patches of coastal Cypress pine forests still exist in the Northern Rivers and even small remnants are worthy of protection.
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Renee Engl and The Echo took a trip to Charleville and Currawinya! Twentyfive are earmarked for felling out of this plot – take them out and everything else in that loop is at greater risk of not making it to the other side. It is possible to develop land whilst holding the existing environment paramount, but it requires dedicated lateral thinking. Accommodating the trees might result in squeezing fewer buildings into a space, but the old Byron used to be about much more than money. Catherine Lane Ocean Shores
ƖǔşōŊ ëſŊ ƐIJſĕĕȒ storey DA I have lived in east Suffolk Park for 52 years, as you can imagine I have seen some remarkable changes. The most spectacular was Papa Bears Night Club on the corner of Bangalow Road and Clifford Street, complete with spinning disco ball. No supermarket or bakery in those days, not even in Byron Bay – we had to go to Ballina or Lismore. After many changes on the corner the building was taken over by Ron Barnes and Vince Farrell; they created the Suffolk Park Hotel. The Farrell family has made it what it is today. The next step was the shopping centre with a shared car park in between. On the opposite corner there were two empty blocks, already there were traffic problems, so a suggestion was made at a public meeting at the hotel that the Council buy these blocks so that the only opening to Suffolk Park could be expanded to give a better entrance/exit and space for the new bus service. James Barnes put up
several thousand dollars for an architectural transport study, which was completed and submitted to Council. So what happened? Nothing. It was our only opportunity to expand the entrance/ exit before the blocks were sold. There would have been enough room for a small roundabout plus a widening of the road from the south. Now we have a new development to give the people of Suffolk Park a bigger shopping centre complex, which will certainly attract more cars, but isn’t it about time we deserve a little more consideration? Unfortunately, the traffic problem will get worse, but the shopping centre will be wonderful for the area. As for the endangered species, there are very few gum trees on this site for koalas and as for the black cockatoos, they like banksia’s etc. I did not see any of these on this site, mainly Cyprus pines and tuckeroo. Our park has recently been upgraded, but the roads are particularly bad, we have very few storm water drains and little-to-no curb and guttering as this subdivision was set out in the 1940s. Some roads have not been touched since then. We are well overdue for attention in east Suffolk Park. Virginia Black Suffolk Park
ĕĈŊōĕƆƆ It is so distressing hearing of incident after incident of reckless drivers killing or hurting people and animals around the Shire. In built-up neighbourhoods like Tallowood and Pine Avenue it would make a lot of sense to reduce the speed limit to 30km like we
Letters to the Editor and cartoons Send to Letters Editor Aslan Shand, fax: 6684 1719 email: editor@echo.net.au Deadline: Noon, Friday. Letters longer than 200 words may be cut. Letters already published in other papers will not be considered. Please include your full name, address and phone number for verification purposes.
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have in town. If revenue is needed, [police should] sit on these streets and make a fortune from selfish scary drivers… before they kill more animals. Sheri Buob Mullumbimby
ENOVA protection As a community owned enterprise, ENOVA needs protection by law. Consumer and green energy producers can make law claims; sue the government for not protecting their interest. There is no question that solar and wind are the cheapest way to produce clean energy and we have the local technology to store it. Byron Eco Park has the answer to become free of dirty power stations. We are happy to demonstrate proof of our concept. The government is regulating an energy set-up out of touch and behind the times, causing environmental disaster at our expense. Dieter Horstmann Tyagarah
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Ole Falco `ƖōƷ ǭǽ ǩǧǩǩ The Byron Shire Echo 13