Puzzling and bewildering are perhaps the best way to describe some of the comments made at a public meeting in Launceston on Tuesday night regarding the university campus relocation to Inveresk.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Only 130 people turned out for the Albert Hall meeting, despite claims by organisers that there were more than 300 in attendance. There's a huge discrepancy between the two figures – it's difficult to understand how that can occur.
Of those 130, it was estimated that about 100 were there to voice their displeasure at the Launceston City Council’s decision to gift land at Inveresk and Willis Street to the University of Tasmania for the proposed relocation from Newnham. That’s hardly a credible turnout given there were more than 1100 confirmed signatories on the petition to call the public meeting in the first place.
The major concern raised at the meeting was over the value of the parcel of land in question – with a figure of $5 million quote by dissenters of the proposal.
There has been much debate and consternation about that figure, but one thing is certain – anything with a value is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. In other words, the land in question is only worth $5 million if someone is willing to pay $5 million for it. As deputy mayor Rob Soward so aptly pointed out on the night: the council has not received a single submission for the land in more than two decades.
Furthermore, councils and governments gifting parcels of land for no or minimal payment for major developments that bring added wealth and benefit to a community is nothing new. So to suggest that by gifting the land to the uni at Inveresk, the people of Launceston are somehow missing out is nonsense.
Support for the university relocation at Inveresk is already huge – and it is growing.
The Launceston Chamber of Commerce, all of Northern Tasmania’s councils, countless business leaders, a large proportion if not all school principals both private and government in the region, the state government, the federal government, the Greens and state and federal Labor parties all agree unanimously that building a new, state-of-the-art facility at Inveresk is good for not only for students, but the city of Launceston and the region as a whole.
And The Examiner says so, too. It’s time to stop listening to a noisy minority once and for all and move forward with this exciting project.
