Ian Cohen, Broken Head
The Echo (April 3) quoting Cr Lyon re ‘broad community support’ for the bypass has raised a number of intertwined issues.
Firstly I accept that Cr Lyon and I have regular communications and on some issues he has taken note of my concerns. It is far more consistent communication than other Greens councillors.
However, I have never supported the bypass or proposed siting of the bus interchange. Byron is meant to be a world leader. Places like Venice and Ortega in Sicily regulate tourist traffic away from the centre of town with drastic but effective tow aways of the vehicles of tourist transgressors. This proposed heavy engineering solution has a history of National representatives from Don Page to Ben Franklin ‘driving’ an environmentally destructive and expensive solution to Byron’s traffic woes.
If I am swimming against a tide of ‘righteous progress’ let me know ([email protected]). As a former Green elected representative at state level I side with existing businesses, affected communities and want creative solutions. Not the Mercato with its 321 underground carparks sucking in potentially thousands of cars per day with parking rotation which should flog any prospect of ‘traffic improvement’.
Environmental destruction, loss of residential amenity, the travesty of Biobanking, often trading already protected areas or inferior sites, are issues paramount to me as a Green. Contact councillors urgently as contracts to commence work are to be imminently signed.
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. 
