Our Landscape in Jeopardy


Newcastle West Business and Professional Women's Club

In New York there were asphalt, wire enclosed and floodlit playgrounds for children, a landscape architect said in Newcastle this week.

Unless we took action now the same situation could develop in Australia, Miss Margaret Hendry, Senior Landscape Architect with National Capital Development Commission, Canberra, said.

She spoke to Newcastle West Business and Professional Women's Club at its fifth birthday dinner. Miss Hendry did post graduate study in landscape designing in England. As a horticulturalist she worked with engineers, town planners, architects, surveyors, ecologists, geologists and botanists. A knowledge of law, atmospheric pollution and social problems were a necessity, she said. Newcastle had to become aware of its future.

At the turn of the century the estimated population would be more than 500.000 with, about 45 per cent of people' under 25. As the city grew it could lose contact with nature. There would be need for more land, housing, roads and schools. Unless we, faced up to the need for recreation areas and conservation we would lose our fine landscapes, she said.

The estimated need for Newcastle was a reservation of 200,000 acres of parkland within an hour's drive' from the city. We had to safeguard environment from deterioration and learn to control the impact of population on land. Our special responsibility was not to destroy the familiar, just for a change.

Official guests at the dinner included Newcastle Quota Club members. Mesdames M. Bass and E. Davies; Mr. and Mrs. Lionel Roberts, from the Australian Institute of Management; Club Patroness, Mrs. Trevor Loveday and Mr. Loveday, and representatives from B.P.W. Clubs in Cessnock, Gosford, Ettalong, Maitland, Wyong, and Kurri`Kurri.