Residents of an historic Newcastle laneway are fighting to preserve what they see as their local park from sale and potential development.
Glovers Lane in Cooks Hill was created from the former Burwood Colliery rail line to Newcastle Harbour which went underneath a bridge on Laman Street, down Burwood Street and the 'Burwood Triangle' where the former Frederick Ash building stood until recently, and on to the port for the loading of coal for export.
The prime piece of Newcastle CDB real estate is for sale by Newcastle City Council by 'expressions of interest' which close Friday, 2 August 2013.
Local resident, Mark Sampson, explains the concerns that the local community have, "Essentially, council has asked anyone who would like to buy Glovers Lane Reserve to tender an offer through an Expression of Interest which closes Friday 2pm."
"We have heard from the agent handling the sale that price is only one factor in who the land will be sold to."
"Our argument is that the land should never have been classified under the Local Government Act 1993-94 as `operationalland."
"Even by 1994 the land had been used as a public reserve by the community for nearly 20 years! Council should have classified the land correctly as ommunityand."
"Today the assumption by Council is that the land has been an `operationalsset held in perpetuity. But basically the Glovers Lane Reserve was put on Council radar after the Cooks Hill Garden Group lodged a submission to create a formal community garden here."
"The land alone has a valuation of over $800,000, so Council staff have offered it on a silver platter to Jeff McCloy and of course what do property developers that turn into Lord Mayors do ... they develop property!"
"So now a unique remnant of historic, green space in urban Cooks Hill gets put on the chopping block for no other good reason than that e (council) need the money"
Newcastle City Councillor, Michael Osborne, said, "It's a beautiful little space that the community have been using for many years. While the land hasn't gone through the formal process of being turned into a council public park but there is a question mark around its legal status."
"When the recent local government act was legislated, all public land in the city had to be either operational or community land. If it wasn't specifically operational land then it became by default community land."
"I think council made the wrong decision when it decided to sell this beautiful little park."
"Given the uncertainties, I think the decision making process shouldn't have been behind closed doors. Only the confidential things, like the valuation, should have been, everything else should have been in the open for the public to see."
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