JUST how long are Eaglehawk people expected to put up with the stink and potential risk to health caused by birds nesting on Lake Neangar’s island?  
Protection of wildlife may be important but when wildlife causes havoc in the middle of suburbia, surely protection of the rights of human beings must take
precedence.
It should be recognised that the homes within smelling distance of the lake were there before the creation of the island and its subsequent adoption by hundreds, possibly thousands, of ibis and silver gulls.  
Drastic action is needed. Why not
remove the island, or throw a net over the trees and all to prevent the birds from nesting? The birds will go elsewhere but one would hope they would not colonise in a fresh location to cause the same problem over again. And if they did, further efforts would have to be made.
It is beyond comprehension that the authorities cannot work out a solution.  
Possibly the bureaucrats do not live in Eaglehawk, so the problem is of no real concern to them.  Maybe the people who are in charge should spend a few nights with residents of Simpsons Road to experience things first hand.
Is it fair that people who have invested heavily in their homes are finding the value of their investment diminished in this way?  If it goes on much longer, Bendigo council, which has inherited from the old Borough council the responsibility for creating the island, may find itself on the receiving end of compensation claims.
Meanwhile the disturbance and the buck-passing continues.
 


 Time for a long-term airport decision


THERE is no doubt Bendigo should have an aerodrome of higher calibre than the one we have. The big question is whether the present location is the best answer long-term.
By the late 1930s, the then city council had decided to build an aerodrome at North Bendigo and planes actually landed on the strip which had been prepared off Finn Street.  However war intervened and the Defence Department’s Commonwealth Ordnance Factory was built on the site which was the only relatively level patch of ground instantly available at the time.  
It took until the late 1960s for the present location, the night-soil (sewage) farm land, to be developed as a compromise
solution by the then Shire of Strathfieldsaye, after an agonising round of negotiations with all five local councils.
At that time, the location seemed to be a long way from town as also, it should be remembered, did the municipal saleyards in Strickland Road.
Well, the saleyards have been moved to Huntly to everyone’s advantage, even though some thought it too far.
Bendigo council now has a further
opportunity to do something for the long-term.  
The city is certain to keep growing and air travel will more likely than not play an increasingly important role.  A study commissioned by the council a few years ago identified a site at Woodvale as the best long-term place for an airport and the time to act has arrived.
Improving the present aerodrome will never be more than a stop-gap measure.
If it were to be sold as industrial land (it
adjoins the industrial zone), the money raised would be more than enough to buy a new site and develop a state-of-the-art
facility a little over 10 minutes from Alexandra Fountain.