John Lazarus, Byron Bay
Bypass? There is no bypass any more. Councillors have voted for the Masterplan’s extension of the CBD area, which will turn Butler Street into the Masterplan’s proposed commercial shopping/development zone.
Councillors have voted to turn the zoning of Butler Street from residential to commercial (and voted to add an extra storey).
A bypass is an uninterrupted traffic-flowing road around a town centre. Butler Street will be a new town-centre road, stacked with shops, cafes, businesses and tourist accommodation that will become as free flowing as Jonson Street.
The farce of the previous Council that identified minor ‘bypass’ use – 18 per cent of cars generally, down to around eight per cent of cars in peak seasons – is now completely discredited.
The bypass is for the development of the Butler Street neighbourhood for the massive proposed commercial expansion of the Central Business District (which includes other peripheral, currently residential, areas) as seen by the Masterplan group. They have used the previous ‘bypass’ proposal as propaganda to facilitate a new Masterplan development area.
Wasn’t the construction of the ‘bypass’ linked to the, to date, rejected West Byron development? And who is bulldozing wetlands for, at best, a minor-use road, apart from ‘Climate Emergency’ Byron Shire Council?
What is the next level up from ‘Climate Emergency’? Whatever it is, it will be down to us residents to take action, as obviously Council won’t.
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. 
