Climate Emergency Motion
Regardless of what your opinion on the apparent "climate change" facing our community. I am very pleased to see that the councillors of the City of Launceston have been able to deal with all the issues that are facing our community so they can now debate motions like this.
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The pressures facing retailers in the Launceston CBD must now be well behind us and there are no vacant shops.
The aging infrastructure managed by TasWater, a company part owned by Launceston City Council, must now be up to date.
Traffic congestion in Invermay has clearly been corrected. Bins and bag dispensers for those of us who walk dogs, which have been systematically removed, must clearly have been replaced. Challenges around the UTAS move to Inveresk must have all been solved.
If any of these issues were still outstanding it would be unthinkable that the good councillors of the City of Launceston would waste the time and resources of council on a motion that will make no difference to our climate. The motion put to council was just a cheap populist political stunt.
Jorden Gunton, Trevallyn.
Beautifying Launceston
A COUPLE of thoughts to enhance Launceston that the council and a developer could take on board.
The council could erect a screen in front of the toilet block in the beautiful City Park, an eyesore seeing the doors open all the time.
And two, a developer could do something with the Alfred Harrop building that sits at the corner of Cimitiere and Tamar streets, with the new hotel being erected nearby this block would make a fantastic niche-makers market place. Just a thought.
Keith Broomfield, Exeter.
Falls Festival Line-up
WITH the initial line-up of bands for the 2019 Falls Festival, it was stated John Farnham would be placed in the middle of the afternoon to cater for his fan base demographic.
Kenneth Gregson, Swansea.
Council Street Spraying
J. DAVIS (The Examiner, August 6) justifies "business as usual" regarding the regular spraying of glyphosate along our street and parkland borders.
Similar debating tactics were also used in defence of the use of Dieldrin, DDT, asbestos (to name a few) before massive health and environmental concerns were eventually recognised, and not until after much heartbreak and expensive legal processes.
Apart from supporting that "there is no such thing as a safe poison", Davis also affirms that "sadly we live in an age where science-based evidence struggles to stand against ill-formed opinion" and I agree.
My concern is that the science that exposes unwise practices, including the use of glyphosate, continues to be ignored.
I nearly lost my 18-month-old daughter after playing in grass recently sprayed with Roundup, we both still suffer allergic reactions after 20 years.
Glyphosate is water soluble, eventually finding its way into and accumulating in our water systems, unlike voodoo, science does not accept that any chemical simply vanishes, not even after 100 days.
I know that effective alternatives to spraying are possible. All I ask is that we consider a wiser, healthier practice for the sake of our community.
Lucia Dale, Summerhill.
Land rezoning debacle
CITY of Launceston council has just sent out 5000 letters telling people that they are to be switched to the agricultural zoning.
Using their definition "tests are significantly more onerous than tests in the current rural resource zone".
Not only are they more onerous, they are preposterous for most if not all the parties affected.
The appropriate zones in the new plan are rural living or environmental living.
Housing setback in agricultural zone of 200 metres cannot be achieved even on the 283-hectare Hawkspur.
Access and topography are properly considered in the rural living zone but not in agricultural.
Agricultural refers to in ground crops yet places such as ours, 60 per cent medium forest with heavy undergrowth on barely covered rock and a 1:3 gradient (three times steeper than Fingerpost), are included.
Lovely to live on impossible for arable farming.
The project states the value of the property is also to be considered - such properties are valued at $10,000 an acre rather than the $1000 an acre for Hawkspur.
Our complaints are met with "the state government has done it not us".
Apparently nobody has read the "Agricultural Land Mapping Project... page 15 2.2.6 step six potential constraints analysis.
The potential constraints analysis did not exclude any titles from the mapping data.
Instead the analysis aimed to highlight titles or areas that may require further investigation by local planning authorities in strategically applying the agriculture zone.
In this case one is minded to think that Launceston thought that is too difficult, just take the money from the high values and force more fees from rezoning requests.
The project suggests a figure of $50,000 capital value per hectare be a cut-off point.
One neighbouring property was subdivided as approximately one hectare three years ago and sold for $350,000.
Somewhat more than the suggested cut-off.