It seems obvious to me that the Byron Bay sports/cultural complex grounds should become a car park, with a bus or (dare I say it a train ) service into town and the markets and Butler Street park should be kept as the market location.
Possibly doing away with the need for a bypass at all, and the money saved on not building a bypass could be spent on the park itself; which lets face it is not worthy of such a beautiful town as Byron Bay.
Matt Andrews, South Golden Beach
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Tess Cullen has fought hard to make the Byron Market Grounds into a Tree studded and more harmonious meeting place for everybody, only to be sent packin’ by the Green mayor of Byron who rather paves paradise and puts up a parking lot. As if that wasn’t sarcastic enough he will not even stop for one day of the month with the parking fee collection!
Park and ride has been tried many times before with limited success. Council can’t force people to stop and park at the sports complex so they don’t. Why would you when all the parking in town is free, and if drive around in circles for long enough you might find one right near the beach.
Butler St Reserve is nothing to write home about as a market venue. Its a vast treeless expanse built on radioactive sand tailings that’s unbearably hot in summer. When the Sunday community markets are on there’s nowhere to park and there’s pandemonium on the streets of the Butler St precinct. I’ve seen people triple park on street corners.
Butler St Reserve does however make an ideal car park, and no, there are no plans to pave it. It is west of the railway line so day trippers can arrive from Ewingsdale park and return without driving into our very congested town centre. Its only 100 metres from the town centre and only a few hundred metres from the beach. All that’s required is a new (or upgraded) pedestrian railway crossing.
There are several more pleasant locations in town that could easily accommodate the farmers markets already. Longer term, we should remove the parking from Railway Park, landscape it, close off Jonson St up to the roundabout, and hold the markets there. The size of the space is similar to Butler St. This would bring the markets into the heart of the town, with plentiful parking conveniently located just 100m away.