Gillian Reffell, Summer Hill
Chris Dobney’s article ’$23m Bangalow food precinct plan unveiled’ on 8 June either looks like it was written for him by the developer or that he was totally on the developer’s team! There was nothing independent about that article it was just an advertorial for big unplanned development on Bangalow’s doorstep.
This developer’s recipe: find a site, make your development big enough to avoid council involvement and push so hard you get what you want. That is not sound planning.
Nothing in the draft North Coast Regional Plan foreshadows this major expansion of the existing industrial estate. In fact the draft Regional Plan emphasises protection of agricultural land and rural landscapes.
An industrial estate straddling the Lismore Road will be the beginning of the end for the rural character of the land between Bangalow and the industrial estate. Ribbon development along Lismore Road with proliferate – there will be so much pressure to just fill it all in! Just look at the road between the freeway and Byron Bay.
You say, ‘The job of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.’ Your article did not live up to this aspiration.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
