Sign a petition to save trees

Coromandel is a five acre property established with oak trees and exotic trees.

However, Baw Baw Shire staff don't want it even though ratepayers do not have to pay for its purchase. You may like to sign the petition to ensure that it is kept for the community.

Just go online and look for "change.org" and find the right spot under Coromandel

Ian Honey, Warragul

More green spaces

Warragul's Coromandel Arboretum is beautiful, a time capsule of diverse vegetation that must be saved.

As West Gippsland experiences the pressure of urban growth I urge Baw Baw Shire Council leaders and developers to plan for more green spaces.

Business is booming in subdivision and real estate as new housing stretches across our precious rural landscape. The infrastructure challenge is not just to plan for roads, footpaths and sporting facilities but to also consider green corridors that link estates to parks and walking tracks eg Brooker Park.

Our recent COVID experience showed how residents and ratepayers embraced passive recreation and fell in love with the green spaces around town.

A park such as Coromandel Arboretum would be excellent for children, igniting their imagination and offering opportunities for open-ended play, a different type of activity to formal sport.

We know that for children, time spent playing outdoors is down 50 per cent in just one generation.

We also know that natural environments have restorative physical and mental effects as well as promoting child development.

Let's save Coromandel Arboretum from destruction and create more green spaces for all.

Sally Baker, Warragul

Disappointed

The Committee For Drouin expresses its disappointment in Baw Baw Shire Council for its decision to demolish the Rumble Pavilion in Drouin.

Community support included hundreds of names on a petition, around 30 positive HYS responses and four written submissions, high numbers of supportive comments on Facebook, and 11 face to face presentations to council. Support came from the Kurnai community, Friends of Drouin's Trees, Baw Baw Arts Alliance, and others that appreciate the unique qualities of the building, and its potential usage.

Thank you to the articulate and informed speakers: Robert Haynes, Claire McArthur, Janet Wylie, Judy Farmer, Kerrie Elliott, Ian Haughton, Helen Timbury, Margaret Austen, Ellen Burrows, Jeannie Haughton, Ingrid Thomas. For anyone in doubt of the integrity and weight of their words, please watch the April 27 council meeting online.

Thank you to Cr Trish Jones for alternate amendment requiring only $55,000, ($40,000 to demolish so an extra$15,000) and for her passionate plea to her fellow councillors. Thank you to Cr Annemarie McCabe for her support.

We understand there is a question of ongoing maintenance and upkeep, but isn't that the case for all local clubrooms? We believe that cost is easily offset by the hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of voluntary work (weeding, planting, signage, significant projects such as the bird mural in Drouin, Trees of Nations- Alex Goudie Park, Significant Tree Registers) contributing to quality of life in our area, done across the last few of years, by the involved groups who have no home spaces from which to base their activities.

Cr Goss has many times explained to me that numbers count, that West Ward can never get its act together. But I ask, sincerely, should Drouin residents ever have asked for anything that wasn't sports related?

Jeannie Haughton

President, Committee For Drouin