A clash with the Education Department in North Newtown

In early 1973 there was a confrontation between Newtown residents and the Education Department over proposals to build a teachers’ college in the suburb. The North Newtown Action Group was formed in March to combat these plans on several grounds: firstly, there was valuable stock in the area as a residential one for low to middle-income earners; the increased traffic would only add to already congested streets; most prospective students lived in the outer suburbs; and Sutherland Council was actually very interested in the prospect of the facility being built in the new township of Menai. Newtown residents felt that the Department displayed ‘an arrogant disregard for the community its plans will disrupt,’ and in April 1974 a green ban was officially imposed. 

References
Verity and Meredith Burgmann, Green bans, red union: the saving of a city, 1998.

Research provided by Isabella Maher