President’s report 2009

It’s been a year of slow impatience. We have waited to see how the deal to hand over 40 hectares of Callan Park to Leichhardt Council would play out. Council was not offered terms for a takeover until September, nearly a year after the original offer from then planning minister, Kristina Keneally. There were obvious shortcomings in the proposed agreement when it arrived: the requirement to agree to a subdivision, the expansion of the ambulance service into the most modern mental health buildings, the lack of commitment on cleaning up contamination and the generally inadequate financial support. Since September the negotiations have dragged on with little progress. Now there could be a new minister for planning who will probably have to play catch-up. However, unless the state government drops its silly hostility to Callan Park and the local community, there is little likelihood of satisfactory progress on securing a well-funded and appropriate future for Callan Park.

We have been pressing our local state MP, Verity Firth, to become a champion of Callan Park on behalf of her electors. She has become more responsive to our representations but we have yet to see much hard evidence that she has secured results. Her essential position still appears to be that the offer of 40 hectares on a 99-year lease, eventual repair of the sea wall, and some financial help in upgrading the Bay Run is a great deal. We continue to press her for (1) the return of a public hospital or healing centre for people with a mental illness and (2) solid guarantees on funding for site remediation, heritage restoration and infrastructure repairs. We also expect her to honour the original offer of 40 hectares and not to support the ambulance expansion into 5-10 hectares of Callan Park. A longstanding commitment from Verity to organise a meeting of tenants and users on the site with FOCP and Council is also yet to materialise.

For its part, the Council has decided to proceed with the first steps of the master planning process, having voted $250,000 as its contribution, while continuing to press the state government to cover half the costs of the master planning process. All parties appear to have accepted that the master plan will cover the whole of Callan Park, something FOCP has been pressing for.

The other positive development on the future of Callan Park has been that the state opposition has now spelt out its present position. They did this in response to the public meeting we called last month. Essentially, the opposition has promised financial help for master planning, good faith negotiations on continuing funding, no subdivision and a vague commitment to support the return of mental health services to the site. This last promise is a long way short of the return of a state-of-the-art, world-class hospital that they have promised in the past.

The Friends remain committed to a major public mental health facility and services at Callan Park. The mental health sub-committee, chaired by Romy Baker, has drawn up a questionnaire to be circulated to people working in mental health in early 2010. The intention is to discover from them what the priority needs are for mental health in NSW and what role Callan Park could play in meeting those needs.

Meanwhile our relations with SHFA, which manages the site, have improved significantly. In response to representation from FOCP, the chairman and senior managers from SHFA toured the site with a delegation from the Friends. Since then SHFA has shown a willingness to hear complaints and act on suggestions from members of FOCP and the general public. SHFA has also made the Cane Room available to the executive for its monthly meetings free of charge. There will probably be frictions in the future over certain matters - like the need for planning consent from Leichhardt Council for activities in the grounds of Callan Park - but the accessibility of SHFA has been one of the more pleasing developments of the year.

Roslyn Burge has been a key player in that rapprochement and was as usual the inspirer of our History Week event on September 12. More than 120 people joined our tours of the site and at least half that number attended the afternoon seminar. The other notable feature of that day was the big turnout of volunteers to help with the tours and catering.

We continue to meet at the Writers Centre whose hospitality and forbearance we are very appreciative of. On the broader front there does appear to be an improved climate of cooperation between the major interested parties at Callan Park - including, since the abandonment of the over-development plans of the University of Sydney, the Sydney College of the Arts. This is also heartening for laying the basis of a fully funded Callan Park Trust on which all users would be represented. As you know, Botanical Gardens, Centennial Park, Parramatta Park and Middle Head all have Trusts to administer them and it’s the appropriate model of overall management of our iconic Callan Park that we continue to campaign for.

There are heaps of people to thank and I can only make a start. For financial help the Friends of Ballast Point have been spectacularly generous; in addition, Mrs Lowenthal (again!) and Doug Sutherland were particularly generous. Ian Wallace supplies the PA for our public meetings and Peter Longhurst makes his truck available as a platform. Michael Sherman organises the design and printing of our leaflets. Councillors have been willing to listen and respond positively and their contributions have been invaluable. Then there are the indispensable letter-boxing volunteers.

Finally, the executive, which regularly meets between monthly general meetings, is a powerhouse of ideas and activity. The executive proposes to increase its effectiveness by appointing a deputy vice-president, assistant secretary and heads of sub-committees from among its members. The aim is to increase out effectiveness as an organisation by better sharing the jobs and responsibilities on the executive. I would like to end by proposing that with the adoption of this report the executive be authorised to proceed on this path with a review of its efficacy at the end of 2010.

Hall Greenland, 6 December 2009