01-08-2025
A park in Honeysuckle? Newcastle can do so much better
The idea is appealing, but it would be a colossal mistake. The harbourfront redevelopment site next to Newcastle Interchange should not become a park.
The site is earmarked as the grand finale of the Honeysuckle development, to be called Honeysuckle Quays, or HQ. If the state government doesn't stuff up the project, we will get the spectacle of a tall city centre rising beside the water - smaller than but visually similar to such marvels as Sydney, Hong Kong and New York.
Using the land as a park, on the other hand, would be a sound way of confirming our condition as good ol' country-town Newcastle.
Herald letter writer Denis Hainsworth proposed the idea of a park on the site a month ago. "Instead of a high-rise, wouldn't it be fantastic to have a large park that would provide much-needed green space in this part of the city?" he wrote.
And my fellow Herald columnist John Tierney took up the cause in an article on Tuesday, saying that the land could "provide critically needed open green space for the series of tower apartment buildings, some over 20 storeys, that have been built or are now under construction on nearby land in Newcastle West."
Yes, the idea is appealing. But putting a park anywhere is always appealing.
Show me a site in Newcastle where people would disagree with the statement "Wouldn't it be nice to have a park here."
No one ever challenges a statement that a park is "needed". But the area that we set aside for parks is always a matter of balance. And not even inner-city Newcastle is in danger of under-doing that balance.
The new core of the city centre is rising around the interchange. The most intense part will be from Tudor Street to Bank Corner; it's intended to extend towards the harbour through the HQ site.
All this is as close as 150 metres from enormous National Park, 23 hectares of green space, about as big as 400 suburban residential lots.
Just 600 metres west of the interchange is splendid Wickham Park, which is cut off from the city now but should become accessible as redevelopment proceeds.
The harbour itself offers open space. We can't walk on it, but we can walk beside it under trees that have hardly begun to grow. No one living or working around the new city centre will feel a lack of open space.
As John Tierney says, we should have had more open space along the harbourfront. But the state government, working with Newcastle council, has stuffed up Honeysuckle good and proper with the damnable concrete canyon and by failing to adequately connect the redevelopment zone with Hunter Street.
Now we must not fail to make the best use of the Honeysuckle land that we have left: HQ.
It must be a site for buildings because it would connect the new city-centre core with the water, making it much more alluring to go into town.
In attracting people, it should breathe more life into the rest of Honeysuckle.
HQ is right next to the interchange. We must maximise the use of our central railway station with its integrated tramline and bus terminal.
Apartment buildings, hotels, offices and shops would do that. A park wouldn't.
In extending development to the water, HQ will at last provide a bit of depth to our inconveniently skinny city centre, which has always imposed long walking distances.
HQ will also offer a visual spectacle - not just for us to admire but for outsiders to notice, letting them know that, actually, we're not another country town in "regional Australia".
Its effect on our national image should be enormous. That would attract more investment and jobs.
This aspect of HQ must not be underestimated. And we cannot achieve the same effect anywhere else on the harbour, because this is the last site.
Now, there are two little opportunities for enlarging inner-city park space near the interchange that we should seize - not because we really need to, but because we can.
When King Street was extended through poor old Birdwood Park in 1973, we were left with two fragments of open space that are barely more than traffic islands.
On their north sides is King Street, and on the south sides each has a road that we could abolish. We'd greatly improve the little parks by adding the widths of those roads to them.
The roads aren't needed because the adjoining sites, including the western part of Marketown, also front Parry Street.
One of these fragmentary parks is called Little Birdwood Park, a good name that we should keep. The other is merely the "King Street Reserve", a name that we can improve on.
In the 19th century, the AA Company's rail line to its coal mines at Hamilton, including the Borehole No.1 and No.2 pits, passed along what is now the King Street Reserve.
In his book Coal, Railways and Mines, the historian Brian Robert Andrews reprints this report from the Maitland Mercury of 28 March 1857, when horses still hauled the trains:
"A melancholy accident occurred to a boy named Joseph Newman, about 12 years of age, employed on the Borehole road [rail line], on Saturday last. It appears his regular employment was to take out a spare horse about half a mile on the road to meet the loaded trains, and that he then used to ride in on the waggons. On the day in question he had got on the waggons as usual, but it appears he got off again and went for a drink in a house close by. The driver soon after missed him, and looking back saw his body lying along the road."
Little Joseph Newman, horribly injured, appears to have slipped and fallen under a train.
Let's enlarge the King Street Reserve and call it Newman Park.
The idea is appealing, but it would be a colossal mistake. The harbourfront redevelopment site next to Newcastle Interchange should not become a park.
The site is earmarked as the grand finale of the Honeysuckle development, to be called Honeysuckle Quays, or HQ. If the state government doesn't stuff up the project, we will get the spectacle of a tall city centre rising beside the water - smaller than but visually similar to such marvels as Sydney, Hong Kong and New York.
Using the land as a park, on the other hand, would be a sound way of confirming our condition as good ol' country-town Newcastle.
Herald letter writer Denis Hainsworth proposed the idea of a park on the site a month ago. "Instead of a high-rise, wouldn't it be fantastic to have a large park that would provide much-needed green space in this part of the city?" he wrote.
And my fellow Herald columnist John Tierney took up the cause in an article on Tuesday, saying that the land could "provide critically needed open green space for the series of tower apartment buildings, some over 20 storeys, that have been built or are now under construction on nearby land in Newcastle West."
Yes, the idea is appealing. But putting a park anywhere is always appealing.
Show me a site in Newcastle where people would disagree with the statement "Wouldn't it be nice to have a park here."
No one ever challenges a statement that a park is "needed". But the area that we set aside for parks is always a matter of balance. And not even inner-city Newcastle is in danger of under-doing that balance.
The new core of the city centre is rising around the interchange. The most intense part will be from Tudor Street to Bank Corner; it's intended to extend towards the harbour through the HQ site.
All this is as close as 150 metres from enormous National Park, 23 hectares of green space, about as big as 400 suburban residential lots.
Just 600 metres west of the interchange is splendid Wickham Park, which is cut off from the city now but should become accessible as redevelopment proceeds.
The harbour itself offers open space. We can't walk on it, but we can walk beside it under trees that have hardly begun to grow. No one living or working around the new city centre will feel a lack of open space.
As John Tierney says, we should have had more open space along the harbourfront. But the state government, working with Newcastle council, has stuffed up Honeysuckle good and proper with the damnable concrete canyon and by failing to adequately connect the redevelopment zone with Hunter Street.
Now we must not fail to make the best use of the Honeysuckle land that we have left: HQ.
It must be a site for buildings because it would connect the new city-centre core with the water, making it much more alluring to go into town.
In attracting people, it should breathe more life into the rest of Honeysuckle.
HQ is right next to the interchange. We must maximise the use of our central railway station with its integrated tramline and bus terminal.
Apartment buildings, hotels, offices and shops would do that. A park wouldn't.
In extending development to the water, HQ will at last provide a bit of depth to our inconveniently skinny city centre, which has always imposed long walking distances.
HQ will also offer a visual spectacle - not just for us to admire but for outsiders to notice, letting them know that, actually, we're not another country town in "regional Australia".
Its effect on our national image should be enormous. That would attract more investment and jobs.
This aspect of HQ must not be underestimated. And we cannot achieve the same effect anywhere else on the harbour, because this is the last site.
Now, there are two little opportunities for enlarging inner-city park space near the interchange that we should seize - not because we really need to, but because we can.
When King Street was extended through poor old Birdwood Park in 1973, we were left with two fragments of open space that are barely more than traffic islands.
On their north sides is King Street, and on the south sides each has a road that we could abolish. We'd greatly improve the little parks by adding the widths of those roads to them.
The roads aren't needed because the adjoining sites, including the western part of Marketown, also front Parry Street.
One of these fragmentary parks is called Little Birdwood Park, a good name that we should keep. The other is merely the "King Street Reserve", a name that we can improve on.
In the 19th century, the AA Company's rail line to its coal mines at Hamilton, including the Borehole No.1 and No.2 pits, passed along what is now the King Street Reserve.
In his book Coal, Railways and Mines, the historian Brian Robert Andrews reprints this report from the Maitland Mercury of 28 March 1857, when horses still hauled the trains:
"A melancholy accident occurred to a boy named Joseph Newman, about 12 years of age, employed on the Borehole road [rail line], on Saturday last. It appears his regular employment was to take out a spare horse about half a mile on the road to meet the loaded trains, and that he then used to ride in on the waggons. On the day in question he had got on the waggons as usual, but it appears he got off again and went for a drink in a house close by. The driver soon after missed him, and looking back saw his body lying along the road."
Little Joseph Newman, horribly injured, appears to have slipped and fallen under a train.
Let's enlarge the King Street Reserve and call it Newman Park.
The idea is appealing, but it would be a colossal mistake. The harbourfront redevelopment site next to Newcastle Interchange should not become a park.
The site is earmarked as the grand finale of the Honeysuckle development, to be called Honeysuckle Quays, or HQ. If the state government doesn't stuff up the project, we will get the spectacle of a tall city centre rising beside the water - smaller than but visually similar to such marvels as Sydney, Hong Kong and New York.
Using the land as a park, on the other hand, would be a sound way of confirming our condition as good ol' country-town Newcastle.
Herald letter writer Denis Hainsworth proposed the idea of a park on the site a month ago. "Instead of a high-rise, wouldn't it be fantastic to have a large park that would provide much-needed green space in this part of the city?" he wrote.
And my fellow Herald columnist John Tierney took up the cause in an article on Tuesday, saying that the land could "provide critically needed open green space for the series of tower apartment buildings, some over 20 storeys, that have been built or are now under construction on nearby land in Newcastle West."
Yes, the idea is appealing. But putting a park anywhere is always appealing.
Show me a site in Newcastle where people would disagree with the statement "Wouldn't it be nice to have a park here."
No one ever challenges a statement that a park is "needed". But the area that we set aside for parks is always a matter of balance. And not even inner-city Newcastle is in danger of under-doing that balance.
The new core of the city centre is rising around the interchange. The most intense part will be from Tudor Street to Bank Corner; it's intended to extend towards the harbour through the HQ site.
All this is as close as 150 metres from enormous National Park, 23 hectares of green space, about as big as 400 suburban residential lots.
Just 600 metres west of the interchange is splendid Wickham Park, which is cut off from the city now but should become accessible as redevelopment proceeds.
The harbour itself offers open space. We can't walk on it, but we can walk beside it under trees that have hardly begun to grow. No one living or working around the new city centre will feel a lack of open space.
As John Tierney says, we should have had more open space along the harbourfront. But the state government, working with Newcastle council, has stuffed up Honeysuckle good and proper with the damnable concrete canyon and by failing to adequately connect the redevelopment zone with Hunter Street.
Now we must not fail to make the best use of the Honeysuckle land that we have left: HQ.
It must be a site for buildings because it would connect the new city-centre core with the water, making it much more alluring to go into town.
In attracting people, it should breathe more life into the rest of Honeysuckle.
HQ is right next to the interchange. We must maximise the use of our central railway station with its integrated tramline and bus terminal.
Apartment buildings, hotels, offices and shops would do that. A park wouldn't.
In extending development to the water, HQ will at last provide a bit of depth to our inconveniently skinny city centre, which has always imposed long walking distances.
HQ will also offer a visual spectacle - not just for us to admire but for outsiders to notice, letting them know that, actually, we're not another country town in "regional Australia".
Its effect on our national image should be enormous. That would attract more investment and jobs.
This aspect of HQ must not be underestimated. And we cannot achieve the same effect anywhere else on the harbour, because this is the last site.
Now, there are two little opportunities for enlarging inner-city park space near the interchange that we should seize - not because we really need to, but because we can.
When King Street was extended through poor old Birdwood Park in 1973, we were left with two fragments of open space that are barely more than traffic islands.
On their north sides is King Street, and on the south sides each has a road that we could abolish. We'd greatly improve the little parks by adding the widths of those roads to them.
The roads aren't needed because the adjoining sites, including the western part of Marketown, also front Parry Street.
One of these fragmentary parks is called Little Birdwood Park, a good name that we should keep. The other is merely the "King Street Reserve", a name that we can improve on.
In the 19th century, the AA Company's rail line to its coal mines at Hamilton, including the Borehole No.1 and No.2 pits, passed along what is now the King Street Reserve.
In his book Coal, Railways and Mines, the historian Brian Robert Andrews reprints this report from the Maitland Mercury of 28 March 1857, when horses still hauled the trains:
"A melancholy accident occurred to a boy named Joseph Newman, about 12 years of age, employed on the Borehole road [rail line], on Saturday last. It appears his regular employment was to take out a spare horse about half a mile on the road to meet the loaded trains, and that he then used to ride in on the waggons. On the day in question he had got on the waggons as usual, but it appears he got off again and went for a drink in a house close by. The driver soon after missed him, and looking back saw his body lying along the road."
Little Joseph Newman, horribly injured, appears to have slipped and fallen under a train.
Let's enlarge the King Street Reserve and call it Newman Park.
The idea is appealing, but it would be a colossal mistake. The harbourfront redevelopment site next to Newcastle Interchange should not become a park.
The site is earmarked as the grand finale of the Honeysuckle development, to be called Honeysuckle Quays, or HQ. If the state government doesn't stuff up the project, we will get the spectacle of a tall city centre rising beside the water - smaller than but visually similar to such marvels as Sydney, Hong Kong and New York.
Using the land as a park, on the other hand, would be a sound way of confirming our condition as good ol' country-town Newcastle.
Herald letter writer Denis Hainsworth proposed the idea of a park on the site a month ago. "Instead of a high-rise, wouldn't it be fantastic to have a large park that would provide much-needed green space in this part of the city?" he wrote.
And my fellow Herald columnist John Tierney took up the cause in an article on Tuesday, saying that the land could "provide critically needed open green space for the series of tower apartment buildings, some over 20 storeys, that have been built or are now under construction on nearby land in Newcastle West."
Yes, the idea is appealing. But putting a park anywhere is always appealing.
Show me a site in Newcastle where people would disagree with the statement "Wouldn't it be nice to have a park here."
No one ever challenges a statement that a park is "needed". But the area that we set aside for parks is always a matter of balance. And not even inner-city Newcastle is in danger of under-doing that balance.
The new core of the city centre is rising around the interchange. The most intense part will be from Tudor Street to Bank Corner; it's intended to extend towards the harbour through the HQ site.
All this is as close as 150 metres from enormous National Park, 23 hectares of green space, about as big as 400 suburban residential lots.
Just 600 metres west of the interchange is splendid Wickham Park, which is cut off from the city now but should become accessible as redevelopment proceeds.
The harbour itself offers open space. We can't walk on it, but we can walk beside it under trees that have hardly begun to grow. No one living or working around the new city centre will feel a lack of open space.
As John Tierney says, we should have had more open space along the harbourfront. But the state government, working with Newcastle council, has stuffed up Honeysuckle good and proper with the damnable concrete canyon and by failing to adequately connect the redevelopment zone with Hunter Street.
Now we must not fail to make the best use of the Honeysuckle land that we have left: HQ.
It must be a site for buildings because it would connect the new city-centre core with the water, making it much more alluring to go into town.
In attracting people, it should breathe more life into the rest of Honeysuckle.
HQ is right next to the interchange. We must maximise the use of our central railway station with its integrated tramline and bus terminal.
Apartment buildings, hotels, offices and shops would do that. A park wouldn't.
In extending development to the water, HQ will at last provide a bit of depth to our inconveniently skinny city centre, which has always imposed long walking distances.
HQ will also offer a visual spectacle - not just for us to admire but for outsiders to notice, letting them know that, actually, we're not another country town in "regional Australia".
Its effect on our national image should be enormous. That would attract more investment and jobs.
This aspect of HQ must not be underestimated. And we cannot achieve the same effect anywhere else on the harbour, because this is the last site.
Now, there are two little opportunities for enlarging inner-city park space near the interchange that we should seize - not because we really need to, but because we can.
When King Street was extended through poor old Birdwood Park in 1973, we were left with two fragments of open space that are barely more than traffic islands.
On their north sides is King Street, and on the south sides each has a road that we could abolish. We'd greatly improve the little parks by adding the widths of those roads to them.
The roads aren't needed because the adjoining sites, including the western part of Marketown, also front Parry Street.
One of these fragmentary parks is called Little Birdwood Park, a good name that we should keep. The other is merely the "King Street Reserve", a name that we can improve on.
In the 19th century, the AA Company's rail line to its coal mines at Hamilton, including the Borehole No.1 and No.2 pits, passed along what is now the King Street Reserve.
In his book Coal, Railways and Mines, the historian Brian Robert Andrews reprints this report from the Maitland Mercury of 28 March 1857, when horses still hauled the trains:
"A melancholy accident occurred to a boy named Joseph Newman, about 12 years of age, employed on the Borehole road [rail line], on Saturday last. It appears his regular employment was to take out a spare horse about half a mile on the road to meet the loaded trains, and that he then used to ride in on the waggons. On the day in question he had got on the waggons as usual, but it appears he got off again and went for a drink in a house close by. The driver soon after missed him, and looking back saw his body lying along the road."
Little Joseph Newman, horribly injured, appears to have slipped and fallen under a train.
Let's enlarge the King Street Reserve and call it Newman Park.
