Great News! We’ve scored front page in the St George edition of the Leader newspaper today! Leader e-Edition: http://specialpubs.fairfaxregional.com.au/fcn/lsg/3dissue/ (NB. This e-edition changes each week so this link will only be current this week). More details can be found in the full permanent online Leader article: http://www.theleader.com.au/story/5212789/fears-more-green-space-will-be-lost-under-penshurst-park-masterplan/?cs=1885 Photos, maps and more information can be found here; https://penshurstpark.wordpress.com/2018/02/14/leader-newspaper-front-page-green-space-fears/ The Leader article is about the likely demise of Hurstville Aquatic Leisure Centre’s pool lawn as a result of the proposed DA 2017/0354. I wanted to let pool users know that they were likely to lose half of the pool lawn, and substantial amounts of garden and trees if Stage 3 of the Penshurst Park Masterplan goes ahead in its current form. The council’s proposed bus bay could be designed much better or placed elsewhere without giving up precious grass and gardens. Council argued that the bus bay was need for children’s safety and more parking. Certainly children’s safety is paramount, but the adjacent car parking that they introduced in this design rendered the bus bay unsafe anyway. Green space is never redundant, as claimed by the council, but is valuable for both the users of the pool and also for the Georges River Council area and Sydney in general. I want to encourage as many people as possible to sign our petition so that we can take as many signatures as possible to Sydney South Planning Panel’s meeting, where they’ll be passing final judgement on the fate of Penshurst Park on 28-02-2018. Further details about the problems with the proposed bus bay can be found in my original submission to the Leader; 2018.02.04 HALC Stage 3 DA2017-0354 Pool Lawn Statement KSkelsey https://www.dropbox.com/s/q4hg4hzeumphdck/2018.02.04%20HALC%20Stage%203%20DA2017-0354%20Pool%20Lawn%20Statement%20KSkelsey.docx?dl=0 Please SIGN THE PENSHURST PARK PETITION here to add your support! https://www.change.org/p/preserve-our-natural-green-space-and-backyard-on-penshurst-park The photo in the Leader article is a result of the BBQ get-together that we had on Penshurst Park a few weeks ago. Thank you so much to Elizabeth Cameron and Graham Fry from Oatley Flora and Fauna Conservation Society; Lucy Chan, Jimmy Ge and Xuefang Chong of the Penshurst Park Tai Chi group; Peter Sangster and Peter Green for lending your support ! And thank you to Brian Shaw for adding his quotes to the article about the importance of water table drainage from natural land. Excellent team work everyone! Finally, thank you to journalist Jim Gainsford and photographer Chris Lane for following my vision for this article, and getting it to print in such a prominent place. People in Georges River Council area need to know about this, and now hopefully more of them do!