We all know people are saying the demographic is changing – Hollywood has arrived in Byron etc, but a lot of people forget our real community is still there, and it’s our real community who attract the tourists that bring millions of dollars into our town.
The healers, the hippies, the alternative life-stylers and most of all the paradise of Byron’s natural environment.
I’ve lived in Byron Bay about 30 years, but I was living in Burringbar when the Tweed Rail Trail was decided by Tweed Council.
I went to all the meetings – public meetings for the train in Murwillumbah, Council ‘community’ meetings, local Burringbar meetings etc, and what I saw was an example of this battle.
I was there at the Tweed Council meeting when Mayor Chris Cherry and Councillor Katie Milne virtually begged the four others to choose the win-win option of dual use, and not build the trail on the track.
Tweed Council called a meeting in Burringbar Hall – I went along. The meeting was led by a Council rep, with a NSW govt rep. I asked: ‘Is this a community consultation meeting?’ Council rep: ‘No! The Council decided not to do community consultation, this is a meeting with landowners bordering the railway’.
He said, ‘It’s already been decided by Council’.
Later I went to the bathroom and as I walked past a little old man and a little old lady – obviously long-term Burringbar folk. They whispered to me, ‘ask everyone who wants to keep the train tracks?’. I whispered ‘okay’! I went back to my seat near the front and called out, ‘Hands up who wants to see the train tracks stay in place?’.
Every person in the room – all Burringbar residents put up their hands, except for two people who sat at the front next to the NSW govt staff member – two bike shop owners.
Those four men chose to ignore the room full of residents – no community consultation was undertaken! This is against the actual requirements for rail trails. It’s obvious that the concept of rail trial was created to utilise tracks in towns that are decreasing in number – country towns sometimes die away as residents depart for the cities. Not here in Byron!
The story of the Northern Rivers Rail Trail has been spattered with deception – catch cries like ‘the train will never come back’ is an outright lie which seems to purposely omit the fact that without too much trouble the solar train came back at a cost of only $3 million.
It is misinformation to say ‘it would cost billions’ etc, and ‘the track is a wreck’ etc.
Former Byron mayor Simon Richardson told me the research showed the track in fairly good condition. Actual train engineers Northern Regional Railway Company completed the recent degradation study helped by local community with their bare hands clearing the track to show a cost of only about $20 million to bring back Byron to Mullum train (www.nrrc.com.au/post/lismore-to-yelgun-degradation-study-now-complete).
Since when are the Council the enemy of local community who want to see services resume to provide for the whole community?
The motion which passed at Byron Shire Council’s February meeting destroyed the ‘dual use’ policy created by former mayor Richardson.
Our Byron community, like that little old man and the little old lady in Burringbar – some are elderly, some are disabled. some are youth – they never had a public voice – most have never written or spoken to councillors.
That is why Council community consultation is required! The original BSC community consultation clearly showed the majority want dual use.
A current councillor admitted he’d never heard of that actual Community Consultation 2019 (MURC- Multi Use Rail Corridor), which cost the ratepayers – I don’t know – maybe $100,000?
I am writing to give voice to the voiceless. In over 30 years in the area, I have never written to The Echo to support the majority, the ‘have nots’, the elders, the mothers, the children who want and need public transport.
Thank you to councillors David Warth and Michelle Lowe for voting against this motion. I am calling out to every single person who cares: please write to your councillors now – please let them know you want to keep the train tracks – even if its your first time ever! Email addresses are on the website: www.byron.nsw.gov.au.
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. 
