Issues
What and where is ‘The Hill’?
Posted on 9th August 2022
‘The Hill’ is a fenced-off area of contaminated Crown land on the northern side of the Tramsheds near the Jubilee Park light rail station. The site of a local garbage tip in the 1890s, the Glebe Society has recommended that it should become an undisturbed urban nature refuge.
Harbour triumph for the Sydney Heritage Fleet
Posted on 9th August 2022
After years of restoration and planning, the ‘John Oxley’ and ‘Kanangra’, two of the stars of the Sydney Heritage Fleet, were manoeuvred to and from Garden Island and returned to Rozelle Bay.
News from our volunteer bushcare groups
Posted on 9th August 2022
A round-up (no pun intended) of the activities of the Glebe Society’s Bushcare Groups.
Craney Small Grant connects SDN Child Care Centre kids with the bush
Posted on 9th August 2022
SDN Child Care Centre in Glebe St have planted a vertical garden of native plants, with the support of a Craney Small Grant. It stimulated the problem-solving skills of the children having to deal with too much rain, not enough sun and visits from local possums.
Modified Blackwattle Bay Plan still not good enough
Posted on 12th September 2022
The Blackwattle Bay Plan has been revised after more than 2,000 objections to the first plan were lodged. While there are some improvements, the site will still be massively overdeveloped.
From the President
Posted on 7th July 2022
An update on what’s been happening in the last month, including recent and upcoming Glebe Society Guided Walks, musings on Glebe’s radical history, and info about Hands Off Glebe’s upcoming screening of the movie, ‘The Public’.
Preschoolers get up close to invertebrates in the classroom
Posted on 6th July 2022
Last year, courtesy of a grant from the Glebe Society, Explore and Develop Annandale Early Learning Centre acquired several new invertebrates. The animals were quickly adopted into the school menagerie.
Have you caught the ferry yet?
Posted on 7th July 2022
Use it or lose it! The trial of the Blackwattle Bay ferry continues. Find out what you can do to help make the service permanant.
Community planting for National Tree Day
Posted on 7th July 2022
Celebrate National Tree Day on Sunday 31 July by attending the tree planting event at Federal Park.
Chaos on Bridge Rd ahead
Posted on 6th July 2022
What happens when you move a busy fish market, visited daily by hundreds of trucks and vans, buses and thousands of private vehicles, from a side street to a major arterial road? Traffic chaos, with an expected double the number of customers as the current Sydney Fish Market and almost double the retail space. The Glebe Society has also deep concerns about the impact of early morning fish industry traffic. The new market will have one vehicular entrance, opposite Wentworth Park Rd.
The raison d’être of the Glebe Society
Posted on 9th October 2022
Reflections written in 2010 (with some factual updates since) on the social and economic conditions in Glebe in the 1960s and the factors that saw the birth of the Glebe Society. In the intervening 50 years, the changing demographics of Glebe have also played a role, arguably both positive and negative. By long term Glebe Society member and former Planning Convenor, Neil Macindoe.
Running the gauntlet on the Bridge Rd cycleway
Posted on 11th June 2022
The Bridge Rd pop-up cycleway was a temporary expedient initiated in September 2020. At the end of March this year the NSW Minister for Active Transport, Rob Stokes, announced it was to be made permanent despite there being no solution to the many safety and access issues. The government must reverse its decision.
From the President – June 2022
Posted on 8th June 2022
Catch up on some of the things we’ve been doing over the last month. As well as a meeting with Lord Mayor Clover Moore, the Society made detailed comments on Council’s proposed Community Strategic Plan. Our annual biodiversity lecture featured Professor Dieter Hochuli from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, talking about ‘how nature survives and thrives in urban environments, and why it matters for the future of our cities’.
Environmental news from the Blue Wren Subcommittee
Posted on 6th April 2022
The Glebe Society’s annual biodiversity lecture will this year feature Professor Dieter Hochuli talking on ‘How nature survives and thrives in urban environments, and why it matters for the future of our cities’. It is on 25 May. Also read news from the Glebe bushcare groups.
Caroline Jones and the Glebe Estate, ‘This Day Tonight’ 1972
Posted on 10th June 2022
In 1972 when she was a reporter on the ABC’s ‘This Day Tonight,’ Caroline Jones’s report on the Glebe Estate shocked viewers, many of whom were seeing for the first time what living in poverty looked like in Australia. The landlord, the Anglican Church thought that the best solution to its problem was to sell the Estate to developers, knocking down the historic cottages without concern for the community that had taken root there. Thanks to Tom Uren that did not occur and it was bought by the government. Unfortunately, today it’s not safe from further predations by developers, while the current NSW Government turns a blind eye to ‘demolition by neglect’.
Early photographs wanted
Posted on 12th June 2022
Do you have any old photographs of 39 Lodge St showing its original verandah?
Glebe Society submissions on development applications
Posted on 12th June 2022
Information about recent Glebe Society submissions on Development Applications in Glebe and Forest Lodge.
Going, Going, Gone
Posted on 6th June 2022
During the last two weeks, 17-31 Cowper St, Glebe has been demolished. Its delightful courtyard and fountain are gone forever. A backward step for conservation, residential amenity and the environment.
A Glebe first – Mobile parklet wins Sustainability Award
Posted on 6th June 2022
Readers may remember the ‘parklet’ that popped up outside six Glebe Point Rd venues in 2015. The parklet was a cut-down shipping container modified to provide outdoor seating surrounded by potted greenery. Late last year, the mobile parklet won Architecture & Design’s Public, Urban and Landscape Sustainability Award.
Because of you we were able to help so many families!
Posted on 12th June 2022
Thanks to the generosity of the Glebe Society donations last year, the Glebe Youth Service was able to provide food relief to many families in need in Glebe through 2021, including food hampers and cooked meals, an essential shop and drop program and Coles e-gift cards.
From the President – May 2022
Posted on 7th June 2022
Catch up with what we’ve been doing by reading the President’s Report. This month has included meetings with Council, and the Anzac Day service at the newly cleaned Glebe War Memorial. The NSW Land and Housing Corporation’s ill-considered plans for development in Glebe continue.
From the President – April 2022
Posted on 6th April 2022
Catch up with what we’ve been doing by reading the President’s Report. This month has seen us attending meetings with Council and other groups with similar goals to ours. Our program of Guided Walks is also going strong.
The threats to Glebe’s urban and social fabric continue
Posted on 8th June 2022
The NSW Land and Housing Corporation have advised that they are investigating the opportunity to renew (ie demolish) 82 Wentworth Park Road in order to ‘understand its potential to deliver more social housing on the site’. Like 17-31 Cowper St, 82 Wentworth Park Rd was designed in the late 1980s by the NSW Housing Commission. It is a fine building which respects the character and topography of Glebe while providing great amenity for residents. Moreover, it is in a heritage conservation area.
A foreshore journey with an ecological theme – Glebe Society Guided Walk
Posted on 6th April 2022
A report on a fascinating guided walk in March that focussed on the Blackwattle Bay foreshore and the ecology of the area.
Glebe & Forest Lodge 9th Annual Spring Bird Survey 2021
Posted on 9th December 2021
The 2021 annual bird survey was held later than usual as a result of uncertainties regarding gatherings due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, it was also our largest team of surveyors with 20 people taking part, counting birds in 11 different parts of Glebe and Forest Lodge. 970 individuals from 28 species were observed.
Report from Glebe Public School on the outcomes of their 2021 Craney Small Grant
Posted on 7th March 2022
The Craney Small Grants Program has generously provided Glebe Public School with the opportunity to inform, educate and enact sustainable practices and programs across our school.
Pedestrian safety still at risk at new Sydney Fish Market site
Posted on 7th March 2022
Transport for NSW officials have responded to urgent concerns over pedestrian safety along Bridge Rd, next to the construction site of the New Sydney Fish Market. Transport for NSW plans to improve signage ‘within a few weeks’, and that they were currently undertaking a pedestrian safety review, which they aim to implement ‘sooner rather than later’. The results of the review will not be publicly available.
From the President – March 2022
Posted on 7th March 2022
The Glebe Society has been incredibly busy over summer. Catch up with what we’ve been doing by reading the President’s Report.
Update: proposed eco-corridor as part of the future for Bays West
Posted on 7th March 2022
A wildlife corridor is being proposed for the foreshores of our bays. The corridor, which would link to similar corridors in Glebe, Annandale, the Greenway and Callan Park, should be included in the government’s Bays West plans.
Report on a Glebe Society Guided Walk: ‘The Good the Bad and the Ugly …’
Posted on 7th March 2022
The Glebe Society’s 2022 program of Guided Walks kicked off on 6 February with a walk led by our President, Ian Stephenson. This walk, titled The Good the Bad and the Ugly: a hundred years of infill housing in Glebe took us on a stroll through the Lyndhurst, St Phillips and Bishopthorpe Estates.
