I was reading a newspaper article today about a public meeting protesting the impending loss of park land at the location of Wallarah and Blackley Ovals in New Lambton. One contributor to the meeting said …

A park of considerable dimensions was required in their midst. There was every probability that the population would increase, which made it all the more necessary that they should have all the parks they could get for recreation purposes.

Interestingly, this statement is not from 2024/2025 when the NSW State Government (in collusion with Newcastle Council) want to hand over much needed sporting fields for the construction of a basketball stadium. No, this is from a public meeting 126 years ago on 15 May 1899. Attendees at the meeting were railing against the state government’s plan to sell into private ownership, at bargain basement prices, large swathes of publicly owned land previously promised for a district park.

Fortunately for us now, the community back then kicked up such a fuss that within a couple of months the government revoked their plans for the sell off. The image below shows an old parish map that has the Homestead Selection Area 585 outlined in red. I have overlaid this into Google Earth then shaded in green the areas that are still green space or used for public recreation today. This amounts to 35 hectares of land that we would not have now if the residents of 1899 had not been vigilant, and actively protested the government’s intentions to flog off public land to the public’s detriment.

The old battle is with us anew.