Save Our Sydney Suburbs (NSW) Inc.
News Release June 2006
More on High-Rise next to Frank Sartor
Hi SOS Members
The importance of the subject of the proposed high-rise next to Frank Sartor
is the reason for our unusual number of news-emails lately. The incident starkly
exposes the blunderbuss approach by the Department of Planning. It provides
an opportunity to capture the public imagination by showing that the policy
of forcing high density onto the community has many unintended consequences.
The policy claims many innocent victims.
SOS member Graham Lewis succeeded in getting the following letter published
in yesterday's Daily Telegraph:
So the biter's been bit - Frank Sartor and wife are perhaps finally facing up to the fact that, across Sydney, he's been shoving higher density down the throats of Sydney-siders, like it or not, in the pursuit of fruitless,doctrinaire policy ("Not in my backyard", The Saturday Telegraph, June 17).
This has occurred despite the fact that there is no city in the world the NSW Government can point to where higher density has reduced traffic. And despite the fact that the developers of Carlton & United's old Broadway site have given the game away - units without at least one garage simply won't sell.
The idea that extra people should be clustered around all our stations to encourage railway use is pointless - only a small percentage of car trips are to work; the rest are to do heavy shopping; to take kids to school or sport; to go to the beach or pool or to visit friends.
Public transport simply doesn't cut it for most purposes. Reducing public
transport frequency, putting up fares and failing to maintain the fleets has
made the position worse. No matter how much taxpayer money Morris Iemma spends
on
spin, no-one's going to be convinced that things are getting better. Years
of mismanagement are now clear.
G.Lewis, Lindfield.
It is important to realise that the Daily Telegraph is the most important paper
for expressing our views. The paper has the highest circulation and has the
highest readership of Labor supporters. It is not scared to criticise the Government
whereas we heard Neville Wran on TV a couple of weeks back boasting how he
got the Sydney Morning Herald off his back by threatening to withdraw government
advertising.
Rolf Clapham succeeded in speaking on the Alan Jones' session on radio 2GB
on Monday but we still need to persuade Alan Jones to give this matter more
attention. You can do this in two ways:
1.The easiest and quickest is to email Alan Jones at alanjones@2gb.com.au and express your point of view; or
2. you can speak on radio by phoning 131 873 at 6 am or 8.30 am. To do this
you need persistence. If the line is engaged hang up and press the redial button
on your phone repeatedly until you get through. Tell the assistant what you
wish to speak about, turn down your radio and listen until Alan addresses you
whereupon hundreds of thousands of people will hear what you have to say.
Come on folks - one way or another, give it a go!
Tony Recsei
President, Save Our Suburbs