Everyone’s favourite councillor sent me one of his famous late night emails tonight. He often cc’s them to what feels like the entire world so you may have received a copy. (more…)
Archive for the ‘spin’ Category
Thanks to Cr Cook 2.2.2012
February 2, 2012Media release 18.1.2012
January 18, 2012
Two fantastic Council documents came out today. (more…)
NEWCASTLE GOES THE FULL FIG
September 20, 2011I suppose being called to an Art Gallery and library to evacuate people in case of falling trees would have to be a cushy job for workers whose job regularly puts them in harm’s way…
Here’s hoping no one is ever at risk while emergency crews’ time is being wasted in Laman Street.
Spin, spin and more spin 7.9.2011
September 7, 2011
The spin goes on about these poor trees: there was a fantastic ad in the Herald a couple of weeks ago from a group of architects, asking for an independent risk assessment of the Laman Street trees. (more…)
History repeats itself
March 25, 2010
Photo uploaded on council's website just before the charette of Laman Street in the 1940s
There have been several attempts to remove these and other stands of figs throughout Newcastle. (more…)
Charette should be fun
March 18, 2010
- The statue inside the cultural centre – apparently originally designed to be outside
I’ve been reading lots on council’s website tonight. Amazingly, (more…)
Case$%#book
March 6, 2010
This is the picture I put in the last post. (more…)
Tree removed 2007- potentially unstable
March 6, 2010
This picture was taken and sent to me by Doug Lithgow from the Parks and Playgrounds Movement. (more…)
The Vision Thing for design workshop
February 14, 2010
Double click on this and you’ll be able to read it. Note the deadline: Feb 22
You can also go to the website to tell council your vision for Laman Street. You really should do this because weight of numbers is important. If council only have input from the people who are lucky enough to go to the charette and those people are overwhelmed by the spin put forward at the workshops and naive enough to believe it, then the trees will go and we’ll have our very own Concord Hospital in the middle of Newcastle (see last post).
Options could include:
Leave the street as it is: it’s fantastic, well-loved and viewed as safe by its users. Newcastle people have not been swayed by talk of the risk of the trees and are skeptical about the motives behind the current moves to remove the trees.
Look after the trees well: mulch around their bases and get rid of the palms growing out of the middle of them. Engage an arborist with the will and expertise to advise on tree preservation. Our own council arborists no doubt have this if they’re allowed to do their job.
Replace the figs that are missing from the eastern end of the street. Council moved to replace them as a matter of urgency in 2008.
Put disabled parking at the eastern end of the art gallery where presumably staff parking is now.
Put picnic tables and more benches in Civic Park.
Put a playground in Civic Park. This would greatly increase the relevance of and connection to the park for Newcastle residents. (Please no more Ausplay equipment, though.)
If someone is set on increasing the size of the art gallery and can’t rebuild because Newcastle’s residents have insisted on keeping the figs, the library could be moved and the gallery expanded into the Cultural Centre. Someone clever and creative suggested the Post Office building. That would stop that poor thing rotting away. Have we sold the wonderful museum building yet? (Wasn’t that a terrible move. The only museum in Australia that made a profit.) That would make a good library.
If you insist on having five minute only parking in the street (which you may not since it’s just part of the spin) then a bus needs to go up Laman street to make it easier for people to get to the library.
Light up some of the trees in Civic Park with fairy lights the way New York does.
Make a feature of the fauna in Laman Street: signage talking about how the grey-headed fruit bat is vulnerable, its numbers have been decreasing and that figs are an important part of their diet. Signage naming the birds that use the street trees. Suggest that anyone walking up the street at night take an umbrella – I can speak from experience…
Signage relating to the history of the street. The cultural collection has some great pictures you could use for this.
Signage relating to how big a contribution the trees of Laman Street make to the city: carbon sequestration, shade, reducing stormwater, dealing with air pollution, cooling the street, prolonging bitumen life, slowing taffic.
And what happened to the silver pointy sculpture that has been outside the gallery for a million years? It’s like anything: you don’t appreciate it till it’s gone.
In France at the Luxembourg gardens there were permanent structures that enabled free outdoor photographic exhibitions. A walk in the shade of the trees, the gallery and the library all attract people but that may attract even more. One or more of them could showcase the exhibit inside the gallery.
A tourist information sign at the end of the street at the corner of Darby Street with a map, beaches, galleries, shopping centres, movie theatres, transport info, skateparks etc.
If extending the gallery into the cultural centre isn’t a possibility and you insist it’s necessary, build an extension out the back where the car park now is.
Bottom line: leave the trees where they are.
If tree replacement can’t be avoided because of council’s intransigence then you should replace them with trees that are equally grand (click on this link and you’ll see some huge trees being moved) as the trees in place now. If Hill’s figs are your problem then you should use Port Jackson figs or Moreton Bay figs and they should be fully grown and planted using modern technology so that the trees are safe from the effects of roadworks in the future and so that the built environment is safe from the trees.
Bottom line: the people of Newcastle should not have to tolerate another Tyrrell Street debacle.
Leave the trees alone or replace them with trees that are the same size.
Councillor claims six arborists have assessed Laman Street trees
February 14, 2010
Gorgeous veteran native
There have been quite a few newspaper articles this week about Laman Street and the proposed charette.
One of them was in The Star and quoted both Ian MacKenzie (who spoke to Council in December about all the advantages of the trees that need to be considered so that one isn’t consumed by talk of possible tree failure) and Councillor Brad Luke who voted against the rescission motion ie is prepared to remove the trees.
If you double-click on the article you’ll be able to read it.
I was extremely interested to read Councillor Luke saying that six arborists have said these trees are unsafe. I don’t get out much but I have read the guff information on council’s website about how the fig trees are going to bring about the end of civilisation as we know it dangerous these trees are supposed to be and talked to lots of people and six is at least double what I’ve heard.
I don’t like not having all the information at hand so I sent the following email to Councillor Luke:
Dear Mr Luke,
I have just read your comments in The Star of Feb 10th, ‘Council decides on workshop’.
I’d like to say that I completely agree with you that the Laman Street workshop is a waste of money. My take on this, of course, is that the street is perfect and should be left alone other than to increase maintenance of the trees.
I was interested to read you quoted as saying, ‘We’ve had six arborists tell us that these trees need to be removed because of safety risks.’ Would these be the same arborists who said that the trees halfway up Tyrrell Street were unsafe?
I would be grateful for further information on who the six arborists are that you mention in the article so that I can read copies of their reports. If you could let me know who they were or let me know that you have passed this on to a council officer who can help me I would be grateful.
I’m aware that Dennis Marsden has assessed the trees and I’ve read his report: he said one needs to be removed straight away and he expects the rest to last 5 to 15 years. His brief was to assess the trees and to look at how to maintain the trees for as long as possible. His report completely failed to do the latter which in my view almost negates the worth of the remainder of his investigation.
I believe this assessment needs to be looked at again by an entirely different arborist with a reputation for tree preservation and that money should be spent on maintaining the trees to extend their life beyond 5 to 15 years. Another opinion would set us back much less than the cost of the ‘charette’.
I have heard that Treelogic have been to Newcastle and looked at our trees but this has not to my knowledge been made public: perhaps it should be. Is this organisation another of the six? Their own website talks about how trying to predict tree failure is like trying to get a doctor to predict when you will die; and their organisation held a seminar and using QTRA showed how uncertain its results are: 12 different opinions among 150 arborists and 4 trees.
Perhaps another is Phil Hewett: I would be interested to see the report he must then have written about how he decided that the trees needed to go.
I’ve attached a photo of the Cultural Centre without its tree cover and Concord Hospital to which it bears an eerie resemblance. Being hidden by trees is obviously its ideal state.
If you could let me know or have a council officer contact me about who the six are I would be grateful. I will then be able to proceed to get copies of their reports.
Yours faithfully,
Caity Raschke
You have to see the photos:
Concord looks nicer – guess why? It has trees in front of it.It’s also bendy but we won’t go there. Home
