The reported City Hill overhaul (''Trees get chop in City Hill overhaul'', August 29, p2) is yet another amazing ''cart before the horse'' fiasco by so-called professional planners in this city.
The main problem in Civic is the inherited one of having the six lanes of Northbourne Avenue carving up the city into two sections.
We now have a busy Eastern retail section divided from a nicely developing university precinct, with business activity withering between these areas. Before getting carried away with plans for Vernon Circle and London Circuit, planners should deal with the main problem first and make Northbourne Avenue either a tunnel or an overpass from Barry Drive to Commonwealth Avenue or Vernon Circle.
Imagine being able to walk unhindered between all areas of Civic, with easy access to public transport, parking and shops around London Circuit.
The Sydney and Melbourne heritage buildings and their businesses would be linked at last.
If this new Northbourne Avenue section continued straight across City Hill to Commonwealth Avenue a large amount of space for a park would be created, but if Vernon Circle had to be retained some monument or structure should be placed on City Hill so it does not remain an isolated island.
Come on, planners, stop creating problems in this city and instead start solving them.
John Holland, Dickson
Getting worse
I cannot be the only person in Canberra who is appalled and confused by the directions being taken both by the ACTPLA and NCA. After having experienced living in London, , Washington, DC, and Honolulu, along with other smaller but unplanned cities in the UK, US and New Zealand, when I first came to Canberra in 1978, it took a bit of getting used to. Then I realised I loved the open spaces, the smoothly flowing traffic and the elegant planned environment.It was an excellent place to bring up children, as it was warm, friendly and safe. Now it seems both the Federal and ACT governments are hell bent into turning the once beautiful Canberra into yet another tatty, overcrowded and unappealing city. Over the past few months, we have had the Albert Hall fiasco, the ASIO Building and the advent of totally architecturally nondescript glass boxes thrown up both in the West of Civic and on the Kingston foreshore. Furthermore, the Railway Station and historic parts of Narrabundah are under threat. Have all in Government and the planning authorities gone mad?
I urge all citizens both of Canberra and the rest of Australia to protest in the strongest terms against the vandalisation of our capital and the unsustainable development across the whole nation.
Dianne Proctor, Wanniassa,
Who benefits?
Lifting the airport curfew, destroying City Hill, clogging London Circuit, permitting the huge new office blocks along Marcus Clarke Street, imposing the ASIO monster along Parkes Way this is only a shortlist of bad projects of recent years, which are profitable for a few private entrepreneurs, but are clearly contrary to the public interest. Are they due to gross incompetence? Perhaps. Or should we rather ask cui bono? Perhaps we would understand why the public good is contemptuously neglected, if we, following the lead of the Fitzgerald inquiry, could follow the money.
Thomas Mautner, Griffith
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