She has not given one clear reason why the building has no historical merit - possibly because she is not familiar with its history. She obviously has not bothered to look at more the the current superficial state of the building.

She has not looked at the value of the council obtaining the side-passage for public access to the car park and the significant  land at the rear which the council can use in ways beneficial to the community. Those areas alone are worth in excess of the amount spent on the building purchase.

She has not looked at the council's own website, which clearly states the council has responsibility to look after heritage sites.

As a heritage-listed building, the place will be able to attract grants to help with its restoration and preservation. Only after this is completed should the council consider selling the building, the monies from which could then be ploughed back into the needs of the shire.

My understanding of the democratic processes is that everyone, including those no longer holding positions within any political structure, are as entitled to make a comment as the next person. That includes Michael Britten. It behoves Katherine Fields to actually research what has been achieved in any council tenure, rather than to simply impute that nothing was achieved.

I promised myself I would stop complaining about council staff’s drastic pruning of the plantings in Imlay St – council’s previous out-of-season pruning of the native plantings by volunteers which saw many plants die and the volunteers resign – BUT...

Why has council brought super advanced Chinese elms and now pruned them to stumpy bushes? Not only a waste of money, but creating the very street safety hazard that was the reason given for the cutting back of other scrubs.

I did not agree with the choice of trees, but once planted they gave a cool elegant look to the street and complemented the outdoor seating etc. Now the barren look is back.

We live in a supposedly first world country and yet we continually pollute our environment by pumping our effluent and stormwater into our oceans!

Here in Eden we had the great poo-narmi of 2016 with thousands of litres of effluent along with uncontrolled stormwater flooding our low lands, high school and aged care facility before settling into Lake Curalo and then heading out to sea.

As a conservationist as well as being a very concerned resident with property abutting the lake, it is of great concern to me, but is this not something that we should all be worried about in our community?

Our stormwater system as it stands collects all the rainwater from the top of the main street of Eden to the top of the hill on the Princes Hwy heading south, and includes all the surrounding houses that funnels all of this stormwater into one undersized, inept stormwater channel, that then runs through suburbia and the high school before running into Lake Curalo.

To add insult to injury we also have a creek that runs partly through our industrial centre before washing into the lake.

Come Christmas our caravan parks will be filled to the brim with tourists and this is what we offer them, a dirty stinking settlement pond instead of the jewel Lake Curalo once was. It was not that long ago we had yacht races, children swimming, fishing and prawning and enjoying every aspect of our beautiful lake, a lake now that looks so toxic that it should all but glow in the dark.

Our stormwater and effluent system is nothing other than a glorified “turd-world” system that has far outlived its use by date.