I’m posting this for my friend Rick and his community. Hastings point is an incredible place at the very northern end of NSW australia. It’s a small coastal village with an adjacent estuary that is being threatened by developers. Much like the fight to save trestles, developers are ignoring the community and guidelines set by the city council, in their hunt for the almighty dollar.
I’ve spent some time in the area, and hope to spend much more in the future. This is a truly special place, with incredible waves,
beaches,
and of course the creek which is like jumping into an oversized tropical aquarium when you swim in it.
If you’ve been here you’ll already know how special it is. If you haven’t you’d be blown away at how awesome it is, and how friendly the residents are. Mellow people just trying to hang on to an incredible place for them, their families, and future generations.
If the developers get their way, Hastings point will be basically lost forever. The creek has already suffered declining water quality from develoments upstream and consequently most of the fish that would chill in the lagoon are now gone. My friend Rick is leading the charge against the developers and city council to set a precedent for Hastings. They are not completely against development as you’ll see if you browse through the site, just sustainable and sensible devlopment that keeps the future of Hastings point in mind. This is the last pristine area in the tweedshire, and on this stretch of coastline.
I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d take a few minutes and check out the site, and cause, and sign the petition by clicking the “how you can help” button.
Yep, it is a great place and would be a travisty if this became overdeveloped! I have sent the emails as suggested. It may be an idea for your friends to place this also on realsurf.com.au, if they haven’t already, which is a forum for a lot of Eastern seaboard (Australian) surfers.
Never been there, but it’s done. Our local council has just been sacked, due to bribes from developers, dodgy people getting jobs with the council, and even a female town planner accepting bribes of a “horizontal” nature, if you know what i mean. And these developers are old, balding, and fat, and she is youngish, and not too bad to look at. They are all money hungry morons if you ask me
WQill do this as soon as I get a moment. Had many great surfs on those lefts off the backside of Hastings Point. This threat of over-development hangs over the coast like a phukn plague. Thanks for getting involved Lok-Box.
Thanks for the support guys! I always head to the bluff overlooking the back beach, park and just take it in for a while. Love it there. But mainly because these are just real people, having their place destroyed, by others that aren’t looking past the buck. It’s a sensitive eco system that makes hastings what it is. We were able to get 5000 surfers together to fight the toll road at trestles. A huge turnout. And the coastal commision had no choice but to recognize that. So we won. For now. The tweedshire council is letting these guys buy their way in and just wreck the place. As you go up the creek a ways you’ll see how the banks provide proper drainage and filtering that help provide the system there. Their plan is to raise the banks by filling in a huge area as much as 1 metre. All the wetlands back there covered in fill. Say bye to that whole estuary if that happens. Say by to the fish, the birds, and of course the banks, which means bye bye to the wave as well. Chain reaction that happens faster than you may think. Just with the recent rains, the residents have noticed substantial differences in the creeks water quality and wildlife habitat, due to developments upstream who’s drainage systems have completely failed. Rick saw all this coming and tried to warn the community. We talked about this more than a year ago and he has been fighting this since way before then. Now he has the community behind him, but it may not be enough. They need help. Maybe if they see that enough people (both locals and tourists) bestow great value on hastings as a natural reserve…one worth preserving, they may have no choice but to recognize that and do the right thing. Again, thanks for your help! Jim
Thanks for this. Hastings has been a staple for many years and overdevelopment is something I have dreaded and expected. When I recently returned from time in Byron it was obvious a bit of land clearing has been going on there. I wasn’t aware of the extent of these plans until your post but I see the major Queensland paper (Courier Mail) ran a story on it today.
The local elections are set down for 13 September 2008. In addition to the petition, e-mailing local councilors directly is useful. A quick look at the Tweed Council web-site doesn’t indicate who they are. The save hastings website does provide a list of people you can e-mail with e-mail addresses.
There are lots of surfing forums etc that would be useful to post to. I’ll see what I can do tonight.
I don’t recall surfing the lefts talked about in the posts but have spent hours out at the right that runs off it and the inside waves. It can be a strange place to surf at times but a really nice place to get away from things. It would be a disgrace to see it go the same way as places further north.
