Some decisions made for the betterment of the citizens of Newcastle & surrounding locations amaze me, truly they are astonishing in their stupidity. The absolute best one is the Mall in Hunter St Newcastle. From the first day that it opened it has seen the demise of Hunter St as a meeting point for all Novocastrains. Not to mention all of the businesses that have closed and moved out of Newcastle over the years.

Instead now we have satellite shopping centres. Did the councillors of the day cop payoff’s for this disintegration of Hunter Street as a shopping centre and destination? I remember how good was it to go out on either Friday or Saturday night, then after the movie at the drive-in you could take your girl or whatever it was, into one of the cafe’s Hunter st and cap off a fun night out and maybe get lucky. Why Bob Hudson even wrote a songabout it. The Newcastle Song.

 Another stupid idea is the Fernleigh Track it used to be a rail line for the mines at Belmont how easily could this have been converted to a light rail from Belmont to Adamstown for not much extra you could have made a path beside the railway. It was closed in the 1970′s when fuel was cheap, traffic jambs only happened in the big smoke.

Sydney, Australia

But no all the so called experts wanted to pander to the minority that just wanted a walking track. Strike me pink!

Then you’ve got the Fassifern to Toronto line same deal there as well. Toronto is one of the prettiest spots on Lake Macquarie with the old rail cottage beside the lake the old pub on the top of the hill a link to the past. I can understand why they wanted to remove the line across Carey St but really how simple would it make commuting to Newcastle or elsewhere from Toronto and remember rail is supposed to be the cheapest from of transport.

The next and probably most important decision that has been under discussion for several years is removing the rail line from Broadmeadow to Newcastle. Now the people that want this to happen should look around the rest of the world. Can you imagine these guys planing the design of the railways in Paris or New York? They would probably stop all rail to town centers and force commuters into buses. Come on, what country in the world does this? Its time for government for the people not for the special interest groups pushing there greedy little agendas.

All we have is small minded people making decisions that effect thousands of people for generations, we need a visionary, an expert making decisions for the future. We don’t need these chintzy little despots rolling out four lane freeways we need someone with “Cojones.” Can you imagine the designers of today building the Sydney Harbour Bridge, my guess is it would have been two lanes at most.

What you may ask is a bookseller from Morisset moaning & whingeing for? It really started from me looking for hard to find titles about the history of Newcastle & surronding areas, from Argenton to Yarrawonga Park. I’m always looking to buy Local histories in excellent condition for customers that want these titles.

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