Le Pub Le Gone, Plans flying too high, Op-shop passing
• Balmain Town Hall, Lilyfield Community Centre and Leichhardt Town Hall have all been recently approved for development as after school centres. This has followed months of community action by the After-School Care Alliance formed by Leichhardt Council. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics data from 2006 to 2011 the number of children aged 5-14 years increased by more than 25% in Leichhardt LGA. With local primary schools facing commercial and population pressure, space for after-school cares on school grounds has become scarce – time for the new baby boomers to bust-in elsewhere!
• Clued in Op-shoppers will be mourning the move of Anglicare’s second-hand shop in Summer Hill. According to the staff the op-shop will be relocating to Villawood. They must know that no trek is too far for the Inner West’s beatniks and bohemians.
• Patrick Gallagher has sold off Le Pub on Darling St to Tim Condon, who says that the pub will return to its former title The Cricketer’s Arms. The two publicans have bought, sold and swapped off quite a few of the Inner West’s local drinking holes; Gallagher originally picking up the Le Pub premises as part of the property swap that saw PJ Gallaghers ditched from Drummoyne and re-located to Norton St.
• Leichhardt Mayor Rochelle Porteous has released a statement critiquing Government plant to build high-rise apartments around Parramatta Road. She says the plans conflict with Ministerial provisions that housing under the Inner West flight-path cannot increase in density. With the Badgery’s Creek Airport set to start sending off commercial flights in 2020 increased area under aircraft noise pose at least a policy obstacle to increasing density in the Inner West.
Last October developers were successful in gaining Marrickville Council’s Approval for putting in a rezoning proposal in to NSW Government for the Victoria Rd end of Marrickville for a proposed 3,000 dwellings, which similarly went against the Planning Minister’s directive to not rezone in future flight-path areas.
Whether noise provisions will be loosened further to facilitate rezoning for housing will be a change that is both seen and heard.
