Destruction of Laman Street Landscape- one year on

Copy: letters and report written one year on from the January 2012 destruction of the Laman Street Landscape in Newcastle's Civic Precinct.

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

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

http://parksandplaygroundsmovement.blogspot.com/

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.

 

 

COAL RIVER workshop 5/4/2003 Notes re John Platt

Coal River –workshop 5/4/2003 Notes re John Platt

Jim Comerford’s book ‘Coal and Colonials’ is a mine of information on Coal River, the beginnings of the coal industry and work of convict coal miner John Platt.(1763-1811)

Coal is the energy of the industrial revolution and still comprises 80% of the tonnage exported from Newcastle, NSW, which is the largest coal export port of the world.

Jim writes fondly about the miner John Platt and incisively on the significance of coal and the beginnings of the coal mining industry.

Captain Cook when he noted the ‘small clump of an island’ that was Nobbys on the 10 May 1770 was carrying in the bunker on board the Endeavour coals perhaps from Newcastle on Tyne.

Coal was used for cooking and heating and extended the range of sailing ships like the Endeavour.

Platt a convict with mining experience was aged 35 years when sentenced at Shrewsbury on August 18th 1798. He was transported for life and arrived in Sydney aboard the Royal Admiral 22/11/1799.

Sydney Traders who had been interested in the coal resources at Coal River applied to have Platt assigned to their coal gathering enterprises. He had been examining the coal outcrops south of Sydney and had developed the belief that the north and south outcrops were part of a single extensive coalfield. Platt was intelligent and had a grasp practical mining problems.

Governor Phillip Gidley King set Platt and eleven other convicts to work boring for coal bearing strata in the Georges River area using boring gear that had been made by Wapshott toolmakers for Joseph Banks and brought out to the colony by Governor King.

They sank a vertical shaft 24 feet in six months and bored down a further 50 feet without striking the seam. The final depth was to be 98 feet before abandoning the shaft.

Prospect Creek where they were working was long known as Coal Creek.

The Balmain Colliery shafts were put down to the coal seams 90 years after Platt’s work and were 2,880 ft. deep. They were abandoned in 1933.

Simeon Lord and Hugh Meehan, transportees turned traders, were the new owners of the 170 ton ex-Spanish ship Anna Josepha. This vessel was sent on a number of trips to Coal River between June and October 1800 for cargoes of coal and timber which they sold for a hansom profit.

Governor King was convinced of the need to make preparations to begin coal mining at Coal River. Colonel Patterson and James Grant together with six soldiers, 2 Sawyers, a Pilot, a Miner and a Native (Bungaree) were in the party as well as surgeon Harris and Louis Barrallier. The Lady Nelson and the sloop Francis arrived off the Hunter on Sunday June 14^th after checking the entrance of the Lake Macquarie (Reid’s Mistake).

Platt guided the miners to where he had won coal for the Sydney Traders.

Colonel Patterson named Nobbys Coal Island and the mainland headland Colliers Point.

Dr D F Branagan 1966 identified the seams mined by the convict miners as the Dirty or Dudley Seam and the bottom seam as the Yard Seam, which yielded the best quality coal.

Archaeological and geo-technical work proving the systemic way Platt had set out the convict mines has not yet been carried out. It is obvious however that the bell mining technique was not used and the more modern bord and pillar was adopted for the underground layout.

Robert Harle General Collieries Manager for the AA Company told the Royal Commission on Earth Subsidence in 1908 of convict built ventilation shafts. Other convict workings were entered at Glenrock and found to be neatly formed with drives and ribs.

34 Irish convict survivors of the March 4^th insurrection at Vinegar Hill were sent to establish the permanent settlement at Coal River to be named ‘Newcastle’. Lieutenant Charles Menzies and party landed the 30^th March 1804. The convicts were put to work at Colliers Point under the Chief Miner John Platt. John Platt died in Sydney Hospital June 10, 1811 aged 48 from ‘Asthma’.

The convict coal miners with their flesh blood and sweat have rendered the most valuable service to the fledgling colony of NSW.           Notes D. Lithgow inspired by ‘Coal & Colonials’ 1997-Jim Comerford.