A source of immense pride: Lambton Park could rival Hyde Park

About 15 years ago in Beijing, I used Google Earth to show a friend that Newcastle had many parks.
I zeroed the picture in on one, Mayfield Park, tucked away behind Crebert Street.
"That's not a park," he said. "That's just empty land."
"But we have to use it for sport," I said, a bit miffed.
"Maybe," he said. "But it's not a park."
This got me thinking about how parks become less pretty when we allocate their space to sports and other practical purposes.
At one end of the range of park designs is something like Civic Park, landscaped only for wandering, sitting and admiring. There seems to be no name for that kind, so let's call them ornamental parks.
The big ones - call them grand ornamental parks - are the ones that people really love. These are the parks they most want to sit in, live near and show off to out-of-town visitors. Think of Hyde Park in Sydney, or Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne, or King Edward Park in Newcastle.
Most of our parks are at the other end of the range, basically just playing fields. Even those that have impressive old trees, such as Richardson Park in Hamilton North, are not too inviting, because most of their area is just a flat expanse of grass.
Newcastle also has magnificent natural reserves: the Worimi, Glenrock and Awabakal parks, plus Belmont Wetlands, Hunter Wetlands and more. But these are lightly used, serving more as urban lungs than as places where people congregate, have picnics or relax.
King Edward Park isn't enough. A city of this size should have a second grand ornamental park, and it should be Lambton Park.
We should turn Lambton Park into what 19th-century Lambtonians would have created if they'd had plenty of money.
The new design should, in fact, be in a 19th-century style. Going old-fashioned can be no mistake: old ornamental parks all over the world are delightful. The most loved feature that's in Lambton Park now is the rotunda, built in colonial times.
We should indeed be aiming at the level of beauty achieved by Hyde Park, Sydney.
Why not?
Be ambitious, Newcastle.
We have some big old trees in Lambton Park now. We'll need many more.
The park has a natural water course, Lambton Ker-rai Creek. So we can easily have a pond.
Then imagine more tree-lined paths, shaded places for picnics and interesting nooks and crannies.
Following a motion submitted by councillors, including Peta Winney-Bartz and Elizabeth Adamczyk, last month, Newcastle council will develop a master plan for Lambton Park, a guide for its long-term development.
The councillors' motion thoughtfully called for the plan to provide "opportunities for passive and active recreation for all age groups". But that should be restricted to space for families playing with balls.
Organised-sports facilities should go elsewhere.
Lambton Park can never be fully landscaped for beauty if some of it is laid out for field games, tennis and other sports. We also need to get rid of most of the buildings on the site, and we should even abolish the swimming centre.
One reason for choosing this site for our second grand ornamental park is that it's fairly big. Its area is about 17 hectares if we count all the land as far as Durham Road.
A much bigger site would be better. Centennial Parklands in Sydney are more than 10 times as large. But what we have at Lambton is as big a parcel as we'll ever have in inner Newcastle, unless the 47-hectare racecourse site is one day repurposed and landscaped.
Lambton Park also has nearby shops, which could have a tram stop, and the space is easily accessible to a lot of people in the surrounding suburbs.
These will be seen as inner-city suburbs in coming decades. Their density will rise, so yet more people will be close to Lambton Park, and they'll appreciate it all the more because they won't have big backyards.
The park's boost to local land values, and therefore council rates, would help pay for the remodelling project.
This leaves the question of what to do with the facilities that now clutter Lambton Park.
Playing fields are in high demand in Newcastle, so replacements for the two in the park would be needed. The council should look for a new site for them.
Maybe land can be found at Shortland, Hexham or Beresfield? Or maybe Lake Macquarie or Maitland councils could be paid to establish two new fields?
The tennis courts at Lambton Park must also be abolished. They're clutter.
Club Lambton (formerly Lambton Bowling Club) and the Society of Artists Newcastle are occupying ugly buildings in the park. Note that this is crown land.
Removal of the artists' building should be a priority. Being artists, they've done their best to make it artistic, but the sooner it's gone, the better.
Eventually, Club Lambton will have to go, too. The use of crown land by bowling clubs was no doubt justified when the sport was popular and we had more parkland than we knew what to do with. These days, fencing off large parts of public reserves for club members and guests looks increasingly indulgent, whether rent is paid or not.
The swimming centre and its car park occupy 2.2 hectares of what could instead be beautiful park space. Its pools may not be needed after a regional aquatic and recreation facility in the Broadmeadow redevelopment plan is built.
If we find that we still need as many council pools as now, we should build a replacement swimming centre somewhere.
More playing fields could be shifted to make space for one, or we might use what are now dog off-leash areas.
Let's aim high.
Let's create at Lambton a park that will be a source of immense pride and satisfaction to the city.
About 15 years ago in Beijing, I used Google Earth to show a friend that Newcastle had many parks.
I zeroed the picture in on one, Mayfield Park, tucked away behind Crebert Street.
"That's not a park," he said. "That's just empty land."
"But we have to use it for sport," I said, a bit miffed.
"Maybe," he said. "But it's not a park."
This got me thinking about how parks become less pretty when we allocate their space to sports and other practical purposes.
At one end of the range of park designs is something like Civic Park, landscaped only for wandering, sitting and admiring. There seems to be no name for that kind, so let's call them ornamental parks.
The big ones - call them grand ornamental parks - are the ones that people really love. These are the parks they most want to sit in, live near and show off to out-of-town visitors. Think of Hyde Park in Sydney, or Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne, or King Edward Park in Newcastle.
Most of our parks are at the other end of the range, basically just playing fields. Even those that have impressive old trees, such as Richardson Park in Hamilton North, are not too inviting, because most of their area is just a flat expanse of grass.
Newcastle also has magnificent natural reserves: the Worimi, Glenrock and Awabakal parks, plus Belmont Wetlands, Hunter Wetlands and more. But these are lightly used, serving more as urban lungs than as places where people congregate, have picnics or relax.
King Edward Park isn't enough. A city of this size should have a second grand ornamental park, and it should be Lambton Park.
We should turn Lambton Park into what 19th-century Lambtonians would have created if they'd had plenty of money.
The new design should, in fact, be in a 19th-century style. Going old-fashioned can be no mistake: old ornamental parks all over the world are delightful. The most loved feature that's in Lambton Park now is the rotunda, built in colonial times.
We should indeed be aiming at the level of beauty achieved by Hyde Park, Sydney.
Why not?
Be ambitious, Newcastle.
We have some big old trees in Lambton Park now. We'll need many more.
The park has a natural water course, Lambton Ker-rai Creek. So we can easily have a pond.
Then imagine more tree-lined paths, shaded places for picnics and interesting nooks and crannies.
Following a motion submitted by councillors, including Peta Winney-Bartz and Elizabeth Adamczyk, last month, Newcastle council will develop a master plan for Lambton Park, a guide for its long-term development.
The councillors' motion thoughtfully called for the plan to provide "opportunities for passive and active recreation for all age groups". But that should be restricted to space for families playing with balls.
Organised-sports facilities should go elsewhere.
Lambton Park can never be fully landscaped for beauty if some of it is laid out for field games, tennis and other sports. We also need to get rid of most of the buildings on the site, and we should even abolish the swimming centre.
One reason for choosing this site for our second grand ornamental park is that it's fairly big. Its area is about 17 hectares if we count all the land as far as Durham Road.
A much bigger site would be better. Centennial Parklands in Sydney are more than 10 times as large. But what we have at Lambton is as big a parcel as we'll ever have in inner Newcastle, unless the 47-hectare racecourse site is one day repurposed and landscaped.
Lambton Park also has nearby shops, which could have a tram stop, and the space is easily accessible to a lot of people in the surrounding suburbs.
These will be seen as inner-city suburbs in coming decades. Their density will rise, so yet more people will be close to Lambton Park, and they'll appreciate it all the more because they won't have big backyards.
The park's boost to local land values, and therefore council rates, would help pay for the remodelling project.
This leaves the question of what to do with the facilities that now clutter Lambton Park.
Playing fields are in high demand in Newcastle, so replacements for the two in the park would be needed. The council should look for a new site for them.
Maybe land can be found at Shortland, Hexham or Beresfield? Or maybe Lake Macquarie or Maitland councils could be paid to establish two new fields?
The tennis courts at Lambton Park must also be abolished. They're clutter.
Club Lambton (formerly Lambton Bowling Club) and the Society of Artists Newcastle are occupying ugly buildings in the park. Note that this is crown land.
Removal of the artists' building should be a priority. Being artists, they've done their best to make it artistic, but the sooner it's gone, the better.
Eventually, Club Lambton will have to go, too. The use of crown land by bowling clubs was no doubt justified when the sport was popular and we had more parkland than we knew what to do with. These days, fencing off large parts of public reserves for club members and guests looks increasingly indulgent, whether rent is paid or not.
The swimming centre and its car park occupy 2.2 hectares of what could instead be beautiful park space. Its pools may not be needed after a regional aquatic and recreation facility in the Broadmeadow redevelopment plan is built.
If we find that we still need as many council pools as now, we should build a replacement swimming centre somewhere.
More playing fields could be shifted to make space for one, or we might use what are now dog off-leash areas.
Let's aim high.
Let's create at Lambton a park that will be a source of immense pride and satisfaction to the city.
About 15 years ago in Beijing, I used Google Earth to show a friend that Newcastle had many parks.
I zeroed the picture in on one, Mayfield Park, tucked away behind Crebert Street.
"That's not a park," he said. "That's just empty land."
"But we have to use it for sport," I said, a bit miffed.
"Maybe," he said. "But it's not a park."
This got me thinking about how parks become less pretty when we allocate their space to sports and other practical purposes.
At one end of the range of park designs is something like Civic Park, landscaped only for wandering, sitting and admiring. There seems to be no name for that kind, so let's call them ornamental parks.
The big ones - call them grand ornamental parks - are the ones that people really love. These are the parks they most want to sit in, live near and show off to out-of-town visitors. Think of Hyde Park in Sydney, or Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne, or King Edward Park in Newcastle.
Most of our parks are at the other end of the range, basically just playing fields. Even those that have impressive old trees, such as Richardson Park in Hamilton North, are not too inviting, because most of their area is just a flat expanse of grass.
Newcastle also has magnificent natural reserves: the Worimi, Glenrock and Awabakal parks, plus Belmont Wetlands, Hunter Wetlands and more. But these are lightly used, serving more as urban lungs than as places where people congregate, have picnics or relax.
King Edward Park isn't enough. A city of this size should have a second grand ornamental park, and it should be Lambton Park.
We should turn Lambton Park into what 19th-century Lambtonians would have created if they'd had plenty of money.
The new design should, in fact, be in a 19th-century style. Going old-fashioned can be no mistake: old ornamental parks all over the world are delightful. The most loved feature that's in Lambton Park now is the rotunda, built in colonial times.
We should indeed be aiming at the level of beauty achieved by Hyde Park, Sydney.
Why not?
Be ambitious, Newcastle.
We have some big old trees in Lambton Park now. We'll need many more.
The park has a natural water course, Lambton Ker-rai Creek. So we can easily have a pond.
Then imagine more tree-lined paths, shaded places for picnics and interesting nooks and crannies.
Following a motion submitted by councillors, including Peta Winney-Bartz and Elizabeth Adamczyk, last month, Newcastle council will develop a master plan for Lambton Park, a guide for its long-term development.
The councillors' motion thoughtfully called for the plan to provide "opportunities for passive and active recreation for all age groups". But that should be restricted to space for families playing with balls.
Organised-sports facilities should go elsewhere.
Lambton Park can never be fully landscaped for beauty if some of it is laid out for field games, tennis and other sports. We also need to get rid of most of the buildings on the site, and we should even abolish the swimming centre.
One reason for choosing this site for our second grand ornamental park is that it's fairly big. Its area is about 17 hectares if we count all the land as far as Durham Road.
A much bigger site would be better. Centennial Parklands in Sydney are more than 10 times as large. But what we have at Lambton is as big a parcel as we'll ever have in inner Newcastle, unless the 47-hectare racecourse site is one day repurposed and landscaped.
Lambton Park also has nearby shops, which could have a tram stop, and the space is easily accessible to a lot of people in the surrounding suburbs.
These will be seen as inner-city suburbs in coming decades. Their density will rise, so yet more people will be close to Lambton Park, and they'll appreciate it all the more because they won't have big backyards.
The park's boost to local land values, and therefore council rates, would help pay for the remodelling project.
This leaves the question of what to do with the facilities that now clutter Lambton Park.
Playing fields are in high demand in Newcastle, so replacements for the two in the park would be needed. The council should look for a new site for them.
Maybe land can be found at Shortland, Hexham or Beresfield? Or maybe Lake Macquarie or Maitland councils could be paid to establish two new fields?
The tennis courts at Lambton Park must also be abolished. They're clutter.
Club Lambton (formerly Lambton Bowling Club) and the Society of Artists Newcastle are occupying ugly buildings in the park. Note that this is crown land.
Removal of the artists' building should be a priority. Being artists, they've done their best to make it artistic, but the sooner it's gone, the better.
Eventually, Club Lambton will have to go, too. The use of crown land by bowling clubs was no doubt justified when the sport was popular and we had more parkland than we knew what to do with. These days, fencing off large parts of public reserves for club members and guests looks increasingly indulgent, whether rent is paid or not.
The swimming centre and its car park occupy 2.2 hectares of what could instead be beautiful park space. Its pools may not be needed after a regional aquatic and recreation facility in the Broadmeadow redevelopment plan is built.
If we find that we still need as many council pools as now, we should build a replacement swimming centre somewhere.
More playing fields could be shifted to make space for one, or we might use what are now dog off-leash areas.
Let's aim high.
Let's create at Lambton a park that will be a source of immense pride and satisfaction to the city.
About 15 years ago in Beijing, I used Google Earth to show a friend that Newcastle had many parks.
I zeroed the picture in on one, Mayfield Park, tucked away behind Crebert Street.
"That's not a park," he said. "That's just empty land."
"But we have to use it for sport," I said, a bit miffed.
"Maybe," he said. "But it's not a park."
This got me thinking about how parks become less pretty when we allocate their space to sports and other practical purposes.
At one end of the range of park designs is something like Civic Park, landscaped only for wandering, sitting and admiring. There seems to be no name for that kind, so let's call them ornamental parks.
The big ones - call them grand ornamental parks - are the ones that people really love. These are the parks they most want to sit in, live near and show off to out-of-town visitors. Think of Hyde Park in Sydney, or Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne, or King Edward Park in Newcastle.
Most of our parks are at the other end of the range, basically just playing fields. Even those that have impressive old trees, such as Richardson Park in Hamilton North, are not too inviting, because most of their area is just a flat expanse of grass.
Newcastle also has magnificent natural reserves: the Worimi, Glenrock and Awabakal parks, plus Belmont Wetlands, Hunter Wetlands and more. But these are lightly used, serving more as urban lungs than as places where people congregate, have picnics or relax.
King Edward Park isn't enough. A city of this size should have a second grand ornamental park, and it should be Lambton Park.
We should turn Lambton Park into what 19th-century Lambtonians would have created if they'd had plenty of money.
The new design should, in fact, be in a 19th-century style. Going old-fashioned can be no mistake: old ornamental parks all over the world are delightful. The most loved feature that's in Lambton Park now is the rotunda, built in colonial times.
We should indeed be aiming at the level of beauty achieved by Hyde Park, Sydney.
Why not?
Be ambitious, Newcastle.
We have some big old trees in Lambton Park now. We'll need many more.
The park has a natural water course, Lambton Ker-rai Creek. So we can easily have a pond.
Then imagine more tree-lined paths, shaded places for picnics and interesting nooks and crannies.
Following a motion submitted by councillors, including Peta Winney-Bartz and Elizabeth Adamczyk, last month, Newcastle council will develop a master plan for Lambton Park, a guide for its long-term development.
The councillors' motion thoughtfully called for the plan to provide "opportunities for passive and active recreation for all age groups". But that should be restricted to space for families playing with balls.
Organised-sports facilities should go elsewhere.
Lambton Park can never be fully landscaped for beauty if some of it is laid out for field games, tennis and other sports. We also need to get rid of most of the buildings on the site, and we should even abolish the swimming centre.
One reason for choosing this site for our second grand ornamental park is that it's fairly big. Its area is about 17 hectares if we count all the land as far as Durham Road.
A much bigger site would be better. Centennial Parklands in Sydney are more than 10 times as large. But what we have at Lambton is as big a parcel as we'll ever have in inner Newcastle, unless the 47-hectare racecourse site is one day repurposed and landscaped.
Lambton Park also has nearby shops, which could have a tram stop, and the space is easily accessible to a lot of people in the surrounding suburbs.
These will be seen as inner-city suburbs in coming decades. Their density will rise, so yet more people will be close to Lambton Park, and they'll appreciate it all the more because they won't have big backyards.
The park's boost to local land values, and therefore council rates, would help pay for the remodelling project.
This leaves the question of what to do with the facilities that now clutter Lambton Park.
Playing fields are in high demand in Newcastle, so replacements for the two in the park would be needed. The council should look for a new site for them.
Maybe land can be found at Shortland, Hexham or Beresfield? Or maybe Lake Macquarie or Maitland councils could be paid to establish two new fields?
The tennis courts at Lambton Park must also be abolished. They're clutter.
Club Lambton (formerly Lambton Bowling Club) and the Society of Artists Newcastle are occupying ugly buildings in the park. Note that this is crown land.
Removal of the artists' building should be a priority. Being artists, they've done their best to make it artistic, but the sooner it's gone, the better.
Eventually, Club Lambton will have to go, too. The use of crown land by bowling clubs was no doubt justified when the sport was popular and we had more parkland than we knew what to do with. These days, fencing off large parts of public reserves for club members and guests looks increasingly indulgent, whether rent is paid or not.
The swimming centre and its car park occupy 2.2 hectares of what could instead be beautiful park space. Its pools may not be needed after a regional aquatic and recreation facility in the Broadmeadow redevelopment plan is built.
If we find that we still need as many council pools as now, we should build a replacement swimming centre somewhere.
More playing fields could be shifted to make space for one, or we might use what are now dog off-leash areas.
Let's aim high.
Let's create at Lambton a park that will be a source of immense pride and satisfaction to the city.

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