Rally 21 November 2010

On a sunny Sunday morning 150 dedicated and passionate people attended our Community Rally. Thank you to all those who were able to attend.

Special thanks to -

• our Mayor Jack Wegman and councillors - Brad Miles, Coral Ross, Phillip Healey and Nick Tragas who attended, for their ongoing support & for working most of the morning as MC's or cooking sausages, etc
• representives from all the political parties for our area, particularly Rob Clarke MP and Andrew McIntosh MP for their ongoing support and encouragement
• the amazing Deb Ganderton from our council and her team
• Eileen, Ken, Sean, Barbara, Lorri and their families from Balwyn North who assisted with delivering brochures
• Chanmali Tregambe from CPR who was the main organiser of the event
• Councillors Phillip Healey and Coral Ross for their BBQ skills
• Maria of Kawarren Street for cutting all those onions
• (edit by BNFNG: ...and some photographs from the event can be seen on our website )
• (edit by BNFNG: ...and a short video presentation of the event can be found here )

We will not stop until we get noise protection for our community - no matter how long it takes!
But at least our voice is being heard:

• We had a "mention" in The Age last Sunday (edit by BNFNG: click here for the article from The Age on Monday 22/11/10 - see the last three paragraphs...)
• Mary H had 5 minutes on MTR radio on Monday morning speaking with Steve Price regarding how the noise affects our community, issue with trucks particularly at night & air brakes and re allocation of funds - we hope that Steve will question Tim Pallas when he speaks with him this week, particularly regarding the allocation of funding for noise barriers which seems to be directed only to labor electorates.
• We expect some coverage in next week's Progress Leader.

I will attach some of the notes from my address at the rally in the next few days. (edit by BNFNG: click here for the transcript of Mary's speech )

Interesting information on the Eastlink/Connecteast website - 13,000 noise wall panels were erected along Eastlink. How frustrating it is for us - we can't even get 1!!!

Watch this space for our next steps...

Community Rally

Calling all Balwyn Northers to attend this rally !

We need to demonstrate that freeway noise & pollution are a major issue for our community, in our homes and in our reserve.

This is YOUR opportunity and unless we demonstrate this, there may not be another one.

Please attend with your family & friends...

...and see the Nov 9 Progress Leader article "Clamour over noise"

"An Election Message for Box Hill North and Balwyn North Voters" - from Friends of Banyule

Local residents will have received a flyer in their letterboxes from the Friends of Banyule (a community organisation with similar concerns regarding freeway-related issues).

Entitled "An Election Message for Box Hill North and Balwyn North Voters", it provides interesting insights into relevant issues for the upcoming state election. (Don't forget to vote on Saturday 27 November 2010).

If you didn't receive the flyer, it can be viewed here.

[From Mary of BNFNG:

Please note that this leaflet was not produced in consultation with the BNFNG, so please direct any queries to those mentioned in the leaflet.

Although members of our community may be members of Friends of Banyule and support the main content of the leaflet, BNFNG's focus is purely on alleviating the freeway noise and pollution currently experienced in the Balwyn North community.

We have no political affiliations, we seek a consistent state policy for the benefit of all communities.

With regard to the rail to Doncaster, BNFNG has had no discussions to formulate a community view - however, I foresee concern that there is insufficient room in the freeway reserve for either the rail extension or the North East Link. This has implications for our Koonung Creek reserve.]