The mayor’s recent casting vote means the repugnant and incompatible 57 Station Street project remains alive. Efforts to stop its further progress now rely on the Northern Region Planning Panel (NRPP). Simon Richardson, the former mayor, sits on the NRPP. He is the original proponent of the project and may decide he is not impartial and has a conflict of interest. I believe, if truly honest and sensitive of his legacy, he should withdraw and leave the decision to the NRPP’s independent members. The weight of arguments from the Mullumbimby Residents Association (MRA) will then, hopefully, result in its rejection.
This would be a deserved slap in the face for a recalcitrant mayor and her three compliant Greens councillors. Furthermore, around 20 per cent of our town’s important businesses will continue to have a lane free of three years of disruption and construction conflict.
A Community Housing Provider (CHP) would not have the financial burden of a hugely inflated construction cost. Essential car parking close to our town’s shops would be retained. And councillors choosing to ignore community attitudes, without a clear understanding of sensible urban planning or the financial implications of their decisions, would be sidelined. It might also shed very necessary light on the role senior Council officers have in the transparency and honesty of advice they provide councillors.
This is a watershed moment. It is a test for right-thinking councillors and hitherto secretive Council officers. The failure of both to understand community attitudes, ignore over two thousand signatures of protest and small town economics, disregard contemporary cost saving construction methods, and bypass proper consultation methods will destroy any remaining faith in the ability of Byron Shire Council to guide our community in a tempestuous and uncertain future.
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. 
