BY ALICE PEART

The Hamilton community will soon be able to have their say on the future of Gregson Park with workshops by Newcastle Council planned for consultation with local residents.

Council passed a motion to prioritise planning at the site of the former Hamilton Bowling Club situated on the park.

The site has remained vacant for a number of years while it was subject to a development application which was recently withdrawn.

Councillor Carol Duncan said although it had taken a while the good news was the Council could start moving on the re-purposing of the site.

“We can start looking at what is required for an ongoing plan of management, and then once we have all of that sort of information we can then go back out to the community and bring in their involvement”.

The Councillor said that although the development will not be happening in the immediate future, council was looking at a long-term management plan which would not be reliant on a single budgetary cycle.

Some suggestions reportedly put forward referenced the Sydney examples of Camperdown Commons or The Grounds of Alexandria as city-farm models.

The green “refuge”, as the Councillor described it, is intended to be a feature of the future Newcastle CBD which is planned to be in walking distance of the park.

Workshops to consult the community will be taking place soon, Hamilton residents and workers interested in contributing are encouraged to keep up to date on the Council website.