For those of us with even limited disabilities it makes it hard to get around to support local shopping as there are only a couple of disability parking spaces.

So maybe a rethink by the council is needed in this regard.

Charles Koltai, Eden 

Having lived along the coast from Moruya to Bega with many friends along the way and not seeing those town’s local papers, I must strongly agree with Dick Robert (Bega District News, June 21) in my disappointment in ABC South East no longer broadcasting funeral notices.

I understand that a new management has a “new broom” and all that, but it seems a most unpopular decision being made by those new to the area. 

A decision that certainly would not have helped our new presenter, Simon Lauder, starting his new role.

Being told that ours was the last regional station to broadcast the funeral notices does not seem like a reasonable decision. 

Maybe the other regional stations should reprogram them, being what listeners want to hear.

Maggie Hunt, Bega

Commenting from a professional heritage management background, I am confused about whether Greg Ferguson (Merimbula News Weekly, letters) is being deliberately disingenuous or really doesn’t understand the state’s heritage system. 

His approach is clearly more akin to outdated 1970s green ban procedures than currently accepted professional practice, particularly disturbing given that until 2014 he taught heritage as part of the NSW high school history curriculum.

Clarifying the concepts of “heritage” and “historic”, I refer Mr Ferguson to the “Australia ICOMOS Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance” (Burra Charter), which provides standard criteria for professional assessment of cultural heritage in Australia. 

“Historic” (age) importance is just one of seven benchmarks. 

The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage database includes listings ranging from pre-European contact through to 2012. 

The Sydney Opera House (completed 1973) is included on Local, State, National and World Heritage Registers, clearly indicating that age is not the sole deciding factor.

This brings me to Mr Ferguson’s outdated contention that the proposal would damage Pambula’s heritage value. 

Professionally speaking, new developments in the heritage landscape are seen as an opportunity to interpret the built environment - by adding something fresh, linking the past with the present and projecting into the future.

And there are a myriad of responses – some traditional, others more contemporary, but both entirely appropriate. 

In making his claims about “heritage”, I wonder just how much Mr Ferguson actually knows about, for example, the adjoining town wells. 

Is he aware that very little original fabric remains? 

And that what we see today is largely reconstruction dating from about 1994? 

And that, in itself, is indicative of the complementary role “present” can play with “past”.

I would thus remind Mr Ferguson that each generation deserves the right to leave worthy evidence of their own contribution to the built document, not just a demonstration of their ability to retain vestiges of the many generations that have gone before. 

Angela George, Eden