This year’s official NSW Bush Fire Danger Period closed on March 21. Essential Energy says its thoughts are now turned toward to the 2024-25 season, and it has begun surveying its powerlines in and around the North Coast region.

The company behind the Wallum housing development in Brunswick Heads is once again taking Byron Council to court, this time for allegedly holding up its planned earthworks at the site in an unlawful manner.

A century and a half ago, the visionary Henry David Thoreau declared people had become ‘the tool of their tools.’  In this device-driven age of smartphones, social media, and artificial intelligence, few observations could be seen as more prescient. 

I feel trapped. There isn’t a single time I attend where I don’t check my proximity to the exits, or imagine what I’d do if there was a fire, or worse, a shooter. The sense of being enclosed is unnatural, I can’t tell what time of day it is, I lose my sense of direction. It’s designed to be disorienting. It feels otherworldly. And never in a good way. They are designed to make you stay longer. They are by design, disorienting.

Ballina Shire Council has started preliminary investigation works at Fishery Creek Bridge, on River Street, and Canal Bridge, on Tamarind Drive, as part of their plan to duplicate both bridges.

If you are stuck for something to do this Thursday, why not take part in local democracy?