On Monday morning as most people woke up bleary-eyed to a new week, chainsaw-wielding council workers chopped down the trees on Otho Street.
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Store owners looked on with stoic sphinx-like smiles as they braced themselves for the first stage of road works in Inverell’s Town Centre Renewal Plan.
The move was not unexpected. But upon encountering the barrenness of Otho Street, numerous people seemed horrified.
They labelled the incident as “carnage”.
Others called it “progress” and felt relieved.
People’s reactions depended on the arborist’s report that they chose to have faith in. Then again, it’s hard to have faith in conflicting arborists’ reports that, coincidentally, reflect 100 per cent the views of those who commission them.
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But, regardless of whether you see the Town Centre Renewal Plan as a revamp or the town’s life-sucking vampire, you can’t say that it’s suddenly caused traffic jams in Inverell.
Those who vow to shop online, boycott local stores and go to Armidale because of the “traffic-congested streets” must surely not know what traffic is and how lucky they are not to have it.
So, yes, go ahead and be angry in the way in which the CBD revamp discussion process took place – or didn’t. After all, even Inverell Shire Council General Manager Paul Henry acknowledged that business owners had a “legitimate beef” in their anger over receiving just 15 days notice of the construction.
And yes, go ahead and have an opinion as to how taxpayers money would be better spent on other matters if that’s what you believe. And if you like, you can even disagree with the aesthetics of the new design.
And the conspiracy theories are fun to contemplate. By the way, the one that states that the Inverell Times is suppressing wads of “shocking” photos showing rotting pipes caused by plane tree damage is not true – though we’d like to get a hold of these pictures if they do indeed exist.
In the end, history will be the judge of architectural folly or triumph in a world where the Eiffel Tower was once described as a hideous giant black smokestack and the Sydney Opera House was once viewed as a scandal of overspending.
However, boycotting local stores to send a “message” to council is akin to cutting off the nose to spite the face.
