By Duncan Leys, May 2025, Bulletin 3/2025
I have calculated that I have four months to go in my term as president. Time has gone very quickly. For the first 18 months, I had a great mentor in Ian Stephenson, and in many other Glebe Society people who shared, and continue to share, their knowledge with me.
Ian’s death has left us very short of management committee members with any knowledge of the planning and heritage legislation that Ian had been so familiar with. We are slowly gaining the knowledge to assess the development applications and other planning issues, thanks to other members of the Society who have helped.
Work on Bidura is underway
On a positive note, it is pleasing to see the security fencing and scaffolding go up around Bidura and restoration work underway – finally, some action to secure the site and start essential maintenance on the building!
One of Ian’s last acts was to draft a letter from the Glebe Society to the Heritage Council asking them to use their powers to compel the owners to undertake essential repairs. Ian also drafted a letter to the Lord Mayor asking that she also contact the Heritage Council and a copy of her letter to the Heritage Council was forwarded to the Society. In my view, that agitation has worked. And not before time. When I stopped to chat with the scaffolder, he told me there were signs people had tried to set fires in the buildings, including in Bidura House itself.
The removal of all restrictions on drinking alcohol in Glebe’s parks
At its 19 August 2024 meeting, the last before the Council elections on 14 September 2024, City of Sydney Council unanimously voted not to renew the alcohol restrictions in many of the City’s parks, including all parks in Glebe and Forest Lodge. Interestingly, I’ve heard recently that a park in Pyrmont whose restrictions had been lifted has since had those restrictions reinstated.
The Glebe Society opposed a blanket removal of all restrictions. So, how has it worked out? Answer – not so well. From an email sent to me by a resident: ‘Midnight last night – there were at least 30 there, screaming girls and shouty men, loud music, obviously backpackers using delivery bikes to get there. I don’t know what time they left – I put a pillow over my head to get to sleep!’
Special entertainment precinct and noise regulation
The City of Sydney ran an online consultation in January 20251 to hear residents’ thoughts about making our late-night trading areas into ‘special entertainment precincts’, a concept developed by Planning NSW.2 The relevant area in Glebe is Glebe Point Road from near Broadway to Marlborough Street (just past Bridge Road). These areas already support late-night trading, with businesses able to lodge a development application to stay open late.
According to the City,3 some benefits of special entertainment precincts include that they can:
- encourage businesses to provide live music and performance
- make it easier and reduce costs for licensed and unlicensed businesses, such as bookshops and cafes, to trade late without a development application
- give businesses access to the NSW Government’s 80% reduction in liquor licence fees and extended licensing hours for live performance
- allow Council to set sound criteria that suit the context of the area and encourage live music and performance.
The proposals are designed to encourage live music, but with it comes issues of noise, increased alcohol consumption, more gaming and the attendant problems of antisocial behaviour and domestic violence.
On 10 March 2025, members of the public made verbal submissions to Council and I watched the proceedings online. The takeaway from the public submissions was that, not surprisingly, businesses that stand to benefit from operating in a special entertainment precinct were in favour, and residents likely to be affected were concerned with noise levels and extended hours.
Noise complaints are now handled by Liquor & Gaming NSW and sound attenuation through development applications will be handled by the City of Sydney. I would have thought one organisation handling both would work better.
On 19 March, I attended the Lord Mayor’s Roundtable for community groups. Residents from parts of the LGA affected by the proposed changes raised the same concerns: Noise, extended hours, increased consumption of alcohol and gaming, leading to residents being exposed to longer periods of excessive noise and to a rise in the levels of antisocial behaviour. Reference was made to a pilot study commissioned by Council in 2015 that gathered information on alcohol consumption in live music venues. It found ‘a possible link between live music and lower overall alcohol consumption by patrons in licensed premises’, but noted that ‘this possible link needs to be tested further.’4 I couldn’t find out whether the City has done more research to test the link.
It looks like other studies have found the opposite, i.e. that louder music leads to drinking alcohol more quickly. A fellow participant in the Roundtable showed me an online article about an interview with a French researcher who claimed to have ‘shown that environmental music played in a bar is associated with an increase in drinking.5 After doing a bit of digging, I think it’s fairly clear that there is insufficient evidence to say with any confidence that music volume (in venues such as pubs, clubs etc) affects the rate at which patrons consume alcohol.
The Society does not have confidence that Gaming & Racing NSW and Council have the capacity to recognise and act promptly to rectify excessive noise and antisocial behaviour, should they arise. Residents fear that once these changes are set in place, they will not be easily walked back, despite what the evidence might show.
Notes: 1. See City of Sydney’s special entertainment precincts consultation webpage and November 2024 discussion paper; 2. State Government planning controls permit Councils to establish ‘special entertainment precincts’. Precincts can be an area, streetscape or single venue. In a special entertainment precinct, sound conditions (aka noise) and trading hours are set by Council and specified in a precinct management plan. The plan can set ‘favourable noise controls’ and ‘extended trading hours’ for live music venues. See NSW Planning’s webpage, Special entertainment precincts, 2025; 3. City of Sydney’s special entertainment precincts discussion paper; 4. City of Sydney, ‘Alcohol consumption in live music venues: Literature review and analysis of preliminary data from a pilot study’, no date, but probably 2016; 5. Resnikoff, P. (2017, November 14), ‘Loud music is scientifically proven to make you drink more’, Digital Music News. The article is an interview with Nicolas Gueguen, one of the authors of the paper discussed in Resnikoff’s article: Guéguen, N., Jacob, C., Le Guellec, H., Morineau, T., Lourel, M. (2008) ‘Sound level of environmental music and drinking behavior: a field experiment with beer drinkers’. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, 32(10), pps.1795-1798. It should be noted that the methodology of this study is significantly flawed and does not support the claim that ‘loud music is scientifically proven to make you drink more’.
There are no comments yet. Please leave yours.