There was a lack of good faith and transparency in the decision making process and a disregard of the community's 13,320 signatures on the petition objecting to removal of all the trees.
The Hon Barry
O’Farrell MP
Premier of NSW
Governor Macquarie
Tower
Level 40, 1 Farrer Place
SYDNEY NSW 2000
Level 40, 1 Farrer Place
SYDNEY NSW 2000
Dear Barry,
Newcastle and the Cultural Precinct One Year On
I can’t tell you how
disappointed I am in your Government.
You promised and we
expected good governance.
But what did we get:
Just a takeover of the Corrupt Right Wing power brokers of the ALP.
It is now just one
year since you sent in the police to stop the people of Newcastle getting open
governance from its last Council on this matter of the destruction of the Laman
Street Cultural Landscape.
By not supporting
good governance and the caring citizens of the town you unwittingly undermined
your own future here.
You will recall I
wrote to Mr
Ross Woodward, Chief Executive, Division of Local Government asking him to
intervene in the interests of good governance with no response..
For you interest I
have enclosed a letter to the Lord Mayor Cr Jeff McCloy and a report outlining
the background to the Laman Street
issue.
I hope you will read
it and understand what was happening.
The issue has
universal relevance with regard to the problems to Local Government Plans of
Management when there is no real overview or effort to support ethical
processes.
Yours Sincerely
Doug Lithgow
President
Parks and Playgrounds
Movement
Parks and Playgrounds Movement Inc
Laman Street Landscape one year on. January 2013
The public beauty, the public shade, the urban amenity are all gone – How did this happen?
The beautiful public trees could easily have been trimmed and the
services trenched in the centre of the street as is happening now.
We all should still be enjoying Newcastle’s million dollar Laman Street
landscape with its gracious setting for our cultural and Civic Park Precinct. The
refusal of the previous Newcastle City Council
to allow the internationally recognised tree risk assessment expert Mike Ellison,
to inspect the Laman Street figs was the last gambit of a Council determined to
avoid formal scrutiny of their Laman Street and Civic Park Landscape and
building proposals.
The council closed Laman
Street and fenced off a large section of Civic Park
and began the destruction using NSW Police to force the issue rather than have
a professional review.
Photo: Services being
trenched into the centre of Laman
Street – This could have been done at any time
with the trees in place
This drama had its beginning in 2010 with some councillors expecting the
trees to be removed to allow the widening of Laman Street into Civic Park
to create a wide mezzanine plaza with an underground building beneath Laman St.
The actual proposal was detailed in Newcastle council's submission sent to the
Commonwealth Anzac Centenary Commission at the same time as Parks and
Playgrounds Movement began a challenge in the Land and Environment Court. Parts of the proposal
were later displayed with the title "Draft Laman Street Civic Precinct
Design Framework".
The Movement had no knowledge of the council's proposals for Laman Street when
we commenced action in the Court to prevent the arbitrary destruction of the
trees. Indeed the Council misinformed the court that there were no proposals.
In
the interests of public transparency, we had requested the council to resolve
its proposals by a clear draft amendment to the Civic Precinct Plan of
Management which at that stage included Laman Street.
It was proposed within the Council but never actually
resolved officially by Councillors to build underground extensions to the
Library as shown in this Council displayed cutaway view above. This proposal
needed Laman Street to be widened into Civic Park, the trees to be removed and
underground powerlines and water mains removed to allow the excavation of the
area for the under ground building.
The whole project was not really needed and too
damaging to the park and to the trees and was not financially viable. It should never have been proposed and if ever it was to succeed it had
to be professionally documented and costed and it could only have been legally
dealt with as an amendment to Council’s the statutory Plan of Management for
Civic Park and by a professional Development Application.
Some councillors seemed determined to promote the less transparent and more
confusing approach without proper exhibition and scrutiny by citizens and
ratepayers or international experts. We wrote to Ross Woodward, the chief
executive of the Local Government Division of the NSW Premier's Department,
urging his attention to the matter.
We wrote: "A breakdown of public confidence in the elected council
has occurred and requires appropriate investigation . . . and possible
intervention to correct the situation." We told him that the council's
behaviour had caused heartache and inconvenience to those who care about this
city and its amenity. There had been, in our view, an unreasonable cost,
inconvenience and waste foisted on ratepayers.
The O’Farrell Government took no action except provide the police.
The Laman Street
cultural area was stripped of its attractive, mature trees without a review of
the exaggerated risk assessment. Council had relied on that assessment so that
they could form an opinion that the trees were a traffic hazard. This allowed
the removal of the trees in Laman
Street by invoking the NSW Roads Act 1993.
The 14 figs in Laman Street
were an important feature of the Council’s official plan of management for Civic Park
and should have been considered in a review of that plan. It would have then been
publicly exhibited with citizens being lawfully able to make submissions for
formal consideration.
Laman Street is a very sad tale with a very damaging and costly outcome for
the city its people and its landscape.
Doug Lithgow
NSW Police guard Laman
Street 31 January 2012
Council misinformed the Land and Environment Court in
relation to proposed development this was important given that the Parks and
Playgrounds Movement was requesting
Council to formally decide on the nature and extent of their proposal and exhibit
it as required by the Community Land provisions of the Local Government Act.
I. Council’s Respondent’s Submissions lodged with the
Land and Environment Court
and dated 5/11/2010
claimed that there was no broader activity proposed other than tree removal.
(Paragraphs: 76, 77, 78, page15 see
Respondent’s Submission L&E Court).
II. The Council’s Submission repeats this claim in the
following paragraph (77) that no works beyond the removal of the trees has been
sanctioned, or were presently proposed. They further claimed that to the extent
that any works were envisaged to be undertaken beyond the removal of the trees,
those works would be in consequence of the removal of the trees.
III. Paragraph 78 goes on to maintain that it is the tree
removal that has necessitated further works in the future.
