Whether you agree with the community members who are listened to or not, it’s a powerful vote of confidence in democracy when community voices are heard, and policy is changed, even at the local government level.
Byron Shire Council has withdrawn from the Special Entertainment Precinct (SEP) proposal altogether, and signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Home NSW ‘to expedite the delivery of new social and affordable housing, including renewed and accessible housing,’ that should affect the future of the Mullumbimby Hospital site.
However Byron Shire Council can’t take the credit – it failed to consult with community at the right time and in the right way, leaving the community to organise themselves to express their views.
The historical experience of the Byron Bay townsfolk in relation to alcohol-related violence and the failure of Council, state, and federal governments to address long-known issues around lighting, transport, and safety left the community frustrated and feeling unheard during the SEP process.
After years of community fighting, including ‘300 locals risking arrest’ in 2010 to keep the Mullumbimby Hospital site in public hands, as described by Caroline Bass from the Mullumbimby Hospital Action Group (MHAG) at Monday’s hospital site public meeting, the community were shocked when Council staff recommended selling the hospital site to developers last year.
There is now hope that the NSW Minister for Housing, Rose Jackson, and the federal minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness, Clare O’Neil, will help the community drive well-planned and quickly delivered public, social, and affordable housing at the site rather than public land once again being sold off for short-term gain. The next step is responding to Council’s proposed development control plan (DCP) (See front page).
While these issues have been challenging for councillors and the community to navigate, it is important to recognise that they have also brought the community together to express their ideas, to push back against the path laid out to them by the bureaucracy, and demonstrate the importance of how the community can come together.
Now it is a question of moving forward. For Byron Bay it is looking at how, not only activation of the rail corridor can be achieved (see page 2), but also how Council and community can work together to place pressure on the state and federal governments to address the need for improved lighting, safety and transport.
For almost 40 years young people have come through the doors of The Echo to do work experience and for all that time they have been telling our readers that they need transport. Our current general manager had to hitch to work at The Echo in Mullumbimby before he could afford a car! So now is the time for the NSW Minister for Transport, John Graham, and Minister for Youth, Rose Jackson, to step up and engage with our community, and region, to look at how they can provide safety, transport, and lighting to our community.
It takes you, the reader, to take action to shape your community. Talk to friends, family and colleagues about the issues you see facing your community. Take the chance to respond to the proposed DCP that Council will be putting out in March. Write those letters and emails to your local, state and federal representatives to remind them of the things that they need to be doing for you. Write letters to The Echo to make others aware of important issues.
Although we may see a world tearing itself apart, we can all work in our community to drive positive change that uplifts the least powerful of us. Take the opportunity to help shape our world in a positive way.
Aslan Shand, editor
News tips are welcome: [email protected]
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. 
