Since Rous County Council voted to abandon the Dunoon Dam as a potential solution to the future water needs of the Northern Rivers, a new group has emerged called Our Future Northern Rivers. As of this morning, 74 people have liked the group on Facebook and it has 103 followers. Austin Curtin. Photo supplied.
Tregeagle macadamia farmer Austin Curtin stood unsuccessfully for the Nationals in the state seat of Lismore at the last election. He is the spokesperson for Our Future Northern Rivers.
Mr Curtin agreed to answer a few questions from
The Echo on condition that his answers were printed in full.
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Cate Coorey
Jim and Mary are moving to Queensland. I am pretty sad about it. They are my friends and, even if you don’t know them, they have been your friends too because, separately and together, they have done so much for Byron – and we are all the beneficiaries. I want to talk about them both, only as a personal reflection, since a few lines can’t begin to cover who they are or all they have done for this Shire they are leaving.
In the late 1990s I used to present a film program that was distributed to other stations via the Community Broadcasting Satellite service, known as ComRadSat. The comrad who ran it was Jim Beatson, a born protester since his youth in Queensland. Jim’s breadth of film knowledge, especially about musicals, and our political interests and love of a good chat made dropping off the show – a five minute task – a much longer affair. Jim retired and moved to Byron and I lost touch with him.
Paul Bibby
The judge’s gavel has fallen on one of the two DAs for a major housing development at West Byron, setting in stone the proposal from Tower Holdings to create 149 housing lots on the much fought-over site.
Some locals will be gnashing their teeth, others celebrating, while a fair few in the middle will be quietly acknowledging that things could have been a lot worse. Map of revised Villa World DA. Map by Dailan Pugh
But what are we actually going to get at West Byron?
First, the good news.
The plan for 149 lots is half of what Terry Agnew’s Tower Holdings (operating under the name Villaworld for the purposes of the recent court case) had asked for, and it is significantly less than the company’s original projections about the ‘maximum developable potential of the land’.
Fire destroyed a shed in Cullen St, Nimbin early Sunday morning. The structure was all that remained of the Nimbin Museum after a fire in 2014.
It took a long six years, but a future for Nimbin’s old museum site was secured with a Lismore City Council decision in September.
The Nimbin Museum, on Cullen St, burnt to the ground on August 14, 2014.
After a convoluted process, Lismore City Council granted deferred commencement consent to developers with a new vision for the site.
The plan involves retail shops, take away food and drink premises, a 12-seat cafe and a medical centre.