Ferry wharf issue should be dead

I have watched the development of plans for a wharf to be built for a fast ferry in two towns.

In one town, there was a safe swimming area, in the ocean, away from the rolling surf. Nice and safe for young children and older people who like to swim in flat water, but don't like the chlorine of swimming pools.

Council got excited about the prospect of a fast ferry, the promise of hundreds of jobs, and the town becoming even more of a tourist Mecca.

Council, at the behest of one particular councillor who was also a real estate agent, totally backed the wharf, and both public and private money was sunk into the project.

Council built the wharf, and in the process took away the safe swimming area.

Fast Ferries in this town went bankrupt, and a lot of people got burned in the process.

In embarrassment, the councillor resigned from council.

The wharf is used for people to fish off, and there are three or four boats pull in to the wharf a year.

But in the process, public land was used, and the town green has been made smaller so that open air seating for a hotel can be provided.

What was once a nice family area has turned into a drinking hole, and there are applications into council for more and more high-rise developments, since the first of the fights to have eight stories high was won.

One could think that Port Macquarie residents and council deserves what it got.

They got enthusiastic about the fast ferry that was going to take them from the harbour at Port Macquarie to Circular Quay in an hour, when a reality check indicated that a plane would take one hour and 10 minutes.

Thank goodness Gosford Council is being circumspect, and protecting the Ettalong community from the lies and furphies, and the ever-increasing demand to incorporate our safe swimming area into the enclosure of the Club.

The issue of the wharf should be dead, since the money that was allocated by the State Government was handed back because Fast Ferries did not get the finances required.

Fast Ferries should not be allowed to divert Section 94 funds from the Club to build a walkway along the foreshore of Ettalong, when a walkway exists already.

There are many projects more urgent than this.

Susan Dean, Ettalong