LETTER: Council seems intent on downgrading Urunga

DEAR News Of The Area,

THE apparent agenda of Bellingen council to downgrade Urunga to a second-rate town has achieved another milestone with the destruction of the magnificent liquidambar trees bordering the central carpark.

A handful of car spaces may have been gained by doing this, but at the loss of their priceless beauty and character right on the fringe of the CBD, and the refreshing shade they provided to both footpath and carpark on hot summer days.

Now we will have a bare, baking-hot, bitumen wasteland.

And this follows close behind the previous masterstroke of permanently demolishing Urunga’s most popular and useful toilets, which were handily situated on the other side of the carpark to the now-gone trees.

Again, a couple of car spaces were gained, and maybe this would have been acceptable if they were to be replaced by an updated version in a similarly convenient location – but no.

According to our councillors, Urunga is “over-serviced” by toilets, there being “toilets at the library, a (mere) two-minute walk from the carpark, and at Morgo St park, a (mere) three-minutes walk”.

All good, then?

So, you’ve come back to your car with your shopping and need a toilet stop before you drive home. Which is better, a toilet a few metres away, or a two-minute walk back across a busy road and down a lane, to a tiny block of two cramped toilets, with awkward access over grass, which are pitch-black inside when the hard-to-open door is closed, and then a two minute walk back.

Or, alternatively, to the park, a six-minute walk overall, across a bigger road.

Imagine you are an elderly person, not too great at walking, maybe using a walker, with a misbehaving bladder, or indeed anyone with a disability using a walker; or a mother with kids in a pram who you don’t want to leave alone whilst you go to the toilet.

Or just a regular ordinary person.

Whichever way you look at it, this is a blatant insult to Urunga, a huge backward step.

Every other town I know has toilets in the CBD.

And of course, Lot 1 Ferry Street, where a block of high-value naturalised bushland, a unique and beautiful asset for Urunga residents, and highly visible on one of its main entrances, is to be replaced by an ugly and experimental housing development of pre-fabricated dwelling units.

Councillors further demonstrate their disdain for Urunga by their trumpeting of the “CBD upgrade”, a multi-million dollar cosmetic waste-of-money, whilst urgent (but boring) needs such as footpaths and better toilets are forever ignored.

Regards,

Peter Dingle,

Urunga.