Dave Kolb, Brunswick Heads
The Crown Trust managers of our parks at Brunswick Heads are unsuitable managers of public parkland and here is why.
Recent statements by Reflections CEO Mr Edmonds concerning the Ferry Reserve that ‘the foreshore land, gazetted as public recreation (holiday park), dates back to 1952’ and ‘Aerial photos from the time prove that it was used as a holiday park’ are misleading.
Just because there may be evidence of some tents on a foreshore in the 1950s this does not mean there was an approved holiday park operating there.
I’m sick of reading misinformation emanating from Reflections Trust. Following is the truth and I publicly challenge Mr Edmonds to send The Echo copies of any proof to the contrary.
In 1988 the Byron Shire Council, as park trust managers, put out approved plans of management (PoM) for Ferry Reserve and Massy Greene holiday parks. In these plans all the foreshore at Ferry Reserve, not just ten metres of it, and land next to Massy Greene known as Lot 7005 were officially excluded from the holiday parks.
Before 1988, there is no record of any approval to operate holiday parks or have camping sites on disputed park lands.
As for the statement that ‘the Ferry foreshore is all part of the same reserve 74701’ and ‘gazettal clearly says bounded by the Brunswick River’ and that ‘This land is rightfully ours to manage’ is circumventing the truth.
While it is the trust’s land to ‘manage’, it is not theirs to legitimise an expansion of a holiday park footprint on to public foreshore park land that is contrary to public consultation. They also ‘manage’ Banner and Torakina parks, but this does not a holiday park make.
Consultation with the broader community is united on preserving the foreshore park at Ferry Reserve for all to enjoy.
In ignoring the results of the consultation process and the actual true history regarding all the parks this trust, like their predecessors, continue to show disdain of the public response and for the consultation process.
The land grab at the western side of Massy Greene holiday park that borders the boatharbour, known as Lot 7005, is like Ferry Reserve, the same all over again. To continue down this road that it too was ‘always part of the holiday park’ is rubbish.
The Trust knew this full well because representatives from the Lands department were present and privy to information gathered at community foreshore management meetings at Brunswick Heads well before the holiday parks were wrenched from Byron Shire Council.
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. 
