THIS letter is very belated but some weeks ago John Eccles had an excellent letter in your paper (“Prepare for a loss of trees and a change of scenery”, January 13) pointing out that Bathurst Regional Council would now be permitted to destroy over 500 trees in a new subdivision at Kelso.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Then the weekend before last we looked at an “open house” of new units which were heavily advertised as starting a new trend of luxury for Bathurst.
The units were quite well-finished inside and all seemed to have very high price tags, but the striking thing was that they were all jammed so tightly together on the block that they might as well have been a block of flats.
Again there was only one straggly tree left on the corner, but we have heard this is destined to go as well, when the last unit is built.
We just want to ask what is happening to Bathurst? The city has always had a very unattractive entry which has improved somewhat since the highway widening at Kelso.
But the town itself always had its own charm with heritage buildings and leafy surrounds due to mature trees.
It seems only recently that we had to get a permit to remove a single tree in our own backyard.
Now it seems council and other developers are hell bent on removing every living tree for any new buildings just for the sake of convenience.
This will produce miles and miles of “McMansions” crammed together on building blocks similar to much of western Sydney such as along Windsor Road.
We noticed the day we left the units and returned to our yard (which has a few trees) that it was almost five degrees centigrade cooler under some shade and without the vast expanses of concrete reflecting the sun.
If we want to attract new residents to Bathurst, surely we should retain some of its unique features and not just reproduce huge tracts of western Sydney suburbia.
We are not sure who has encouraged this recent destruction of all trees, whether it is the elected council, council planning staff or the Western Regional Planning Panel, but we feel very strongly that these policies should be reversed as soon as possible.
We feel the residents who objected to the DA at Kelso would have similar views to us.