It was a mid-week evening in June 2017 and The Echo was sitting alongside about 50 locals in a high-ceilinged room above the Byron Community Centre.
The meeting had been organised by a small group of prominent community members, including the then Mayor Simon Richardson and Byron Writers Festival founder Chris Hanley, to discuss the future of the old Byron Hospital.
With the shiny new hospital at Ewingsdale up and running, attention had turned to what might become of the old hospital site on Shirley Street, Byron Bay and the hopes that it might be used to enhance the lives of locals.
Community campaign
For at least some in the room, the idea that the state government might return the site to the community seemed far-fetched. After all, this was prime real estate near the centre of Byron Bay – surely developers would be circling as the government’s bean counters rubbed their hands together with glee.
But as the meeting progressed, it became clear that the community had the stomach for a campaign. One after another, locals stood up to share stories about the role the hospital had played in their lives – as a place of birth, of healing, and of work.
The ideas at that stage were vague: a homeless support service, a drop-in centre for young people, an arts hub… But there was a common theme amongst the visions – the land holding the old hospital had been gifted to the community in the first place and it should be returned to the community free of charge.
For locals
It was this meeting and many more like it in the ensuing months and years that planted the seed for the community hub which was opened last week in Byron.
‘The community was insistent that the site continue to be used for the health and wellbeing of local people and not be sold for commercial profit,’ the current Byron Mayor Sarah Ndiaye said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
‘To be here today with those community representatives and (Upper House MP) Ben Franklin who successfully took the case to the state government, is such an example of what can be achieved with vision and trust and intent.’
The new ‘CoLab on Arakwal Land’ isn’t exactly what everyone had envisaged, but it is consistent with the basic desires expressed by those who attended that first meeting – that the land be used to support the community.
The hub will provide office space and communal areas for community service providers, businesses, educators, health providers and the arts. Any profits received from these tenancies will be invested back into local groups and community projects.
While it has long been known that the head tenant and manager of the space will be local community service provider Social Futures, the identity of the tenants is yet to be revealed.
Previous plans for Southern Cross University to be part of the hub have been abandoned, and it is unclear who will take their place. What is certain is that the community members who planted those first seeds will be keenly watching as their vision for the old hospital finally comes to fruition.
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