Latest News
NSW Flood Inquiry released today
The NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet was in Lismore at Southern Cross University this morning at 11am releasing the NSW Independent Flood Inquiry where he accepted every recommendation put forward.
Other News
Byron Bay Surf Festival
Surfers, beach lovers, water people – owing to COVID- related complications, the 2022 Byron Bay Surf Festival has moved...
‘We’re back!’ Homecoming for The Channon market
The reverberations of the February and March floods reached far beyond things most people expected – one of those things was the state of Coronation Park at The Channon where every second Sunday of the month one of the biggest and best markets on the Far North Coast is held.
Car park housing
In recent weeks the idea by Council to develop the existing car park in Station Street has dropped out...
Police assault charge heads back to local court
The NSW Supreme Court has found that a decision by local magistrate and former police officer, Michael Deakin, was an ‘error of law’.
Bruns playground?
I have been fortunate to travel from Cape York Qld to Cockle Creek Tassie and as a grandparent always...
Ecocide in Mullum
Saddened by the huge trauma that homeless flood victims are undergoing, those feelings were further compounded by reading Hans...
Stories about "Save Ballina’s Koalas":
Call to secure bushfire funding for koalas and other endangered species
Ballina Shire councillor Jeff Johnson is calling for a port if the $1.1m dollars in bushfire funding that has been received by Ballina Shire Council to be spent on the local koala population.
Ballina koalas’ ‘fate sealed’ as highway route confirmed
Despite a 10-year campaign to prevent the Pacific Highway being routed through the middle of the region’s most significant koala colony, new federal environment minister Josh Frydenberg rubber-stamped the RMS proposal on his first day in the job.
Highway route in ‘worst possible spot’ for koalas: expert
Backed up by a renowned koala expert, local, national and international conservation groups are accusing the Roads, Maritime Services (RMS) agency of submitting inaccurate and misleading information in the Ballina Koala plan.
Ballina koala campaigners seek crowdfunding
The Save Ballina Koala campaign has turned to crowdfunding in a last-ditch bid to save the north coast’s sole remaining intact colony of the marsupial.
State promises to cover cost of Ballina koala fences
Ballina mayor David Wright says councillors were told yesterday that Roads and Maritime Services have undertaken to cover the cost of koala fences along some local roads in Ballina shire if the controversial Blackwall Ranges highway route goes ahead.
Koalas in highway’s path ‘dying anyway’, says RMS
The newly released koala plan of management for the Pacific Highway section south of Ballina has drawn the ire of koala campaigners who say it is simply a method of managing the local colony into extinction.
Fence local roads in Ballina shire to protect koalas: Johnson
A Ballina shire councillor is hoping to gain support today for a motion calling on either the state or federal governments to fund koala fences along local roads in Ballina shire.
Nesting boxes ‘won’t save endangered species’
One of the region’s key wildlife groups is sceptical that 700 ‘nesting boxes’ for native animals displaced by the encroachment of the Pacific Highway into the Blackwall Range will improve their survival chances.
RMS accused of cover-up over highway-route secrecy
Roads and Maritime Services NSW has been accused of sitting on studies of a koala colony in the path of the Broadwater section of the Pacific Highway, with protection groups suggesting the authority is massaging the figures.
Government refuses to route Pacific Highway away from koalas
In the clearest show yet that the state government is unmoved about the plight of the north coast’s last intact koala colony, it indicated in parliament yesterday that it still intends to plough through it when it builds the new Pacific Highway south of Ballina.
Local News
Lismore Councillors to collectively decide on new GM
Eve Jeffery - 2
The recent history of general managers in the Lismore Council has been nothing if not chequered. With a very politically divided council, the question of whether all interested councillors, or just a select few, should choose the new GM proved contentious last night in the Goonellabah chambers.
Byron Echo
Byron’s Fletcher St welcomes new members
Paul Bibby - 0
Fletcher Street Cottage has welcomed the arrival of three new community support workers to help the growing number of locals facing the challenges of homelessness.
Byron Echo
Byron’s Mayor Lyon defends Mullum pod fiasco
Byron Shire Council Mayor Michael Lyon has defended Council’s handling of the ongoing Mullum pod accommodation debacle, telling The Echo that councillors requested, through a Council resolution, that Resilience NSW conduct consultation with neighbouring residents regarding the rail corridor works on Prince Street.
Byron Echo
Mullum, flooding and pods
In this region we are all, except for a few, living on floodplains or areas prone to further landslips. And as far as I...
