Pick of the week - Sweet Tooth
BENDIGO’S residential Strategy will be reviewed because of greater than expected growth.
The State Government has announced a grant of $50,000 to carry out the review.
The review is needed because, according to the State Government, 40 per cent of the forecast growth between 2006 and 2031 had already been realised.
Regional Development Parliamentary Secretary Damian Drum made the announcement this morning.
Mr Drum said the Bendigo Residential Strategy Review would deliver greater community and investor certainty, helping the region grow.
“The Bendigo Residential Development Strategy was adopted in 2004 and is currently being audited because of the faster than anticipated growth that has occurred in Bendigo in recent years,” he said.
“Strong residential growth has many flow-on economic benefits and having a clear framework for future development will position Greater Bendigo City Council to undertake more detailed, place-based planning in the future.”
Deputy Premier Peter Ryan said about 40 per cent of the forecast growth between 2006 and 2031 had already been realised.
The Residential Strategy impacts directly on where and how property developments use “infill” parcels of land, range of housing styles and also on housing affordability.
“This project will review the strategy, assess current and estimated land supply and demand and consider various legislative and policy changes,” Mr Ryan said,
“It will also consider the latest demographic data and establish a new strategic framework to guide the long-term residential growth of Greater Bendigo.
“The project will result in a revised residential strategy that will give developers, the community and service providers greater surety and confidence about where land can be developed for residential purposes, and that sufficient land is available to accommodate the City of Greater Bendigo’s future growth.”
Mr Ryan said a contemporary strategic planning framework was essential to the economic development of a large regional centre like Bendigo.
“Clearly identifying future growth options and supporting infrastructure needs will enable the Greater Bendigo City Council and other infrastructure providers to plan their capital works programs well in advance,” he said.
“Identifying long-term growth areas will enable the council and other service authorities to start planning for the delivery of services, thereby minimising the lag time between when residential development occurs and when the services need to be in place.”
Rosemary Sorensen | Bendigo Weekly | 01-Nov-2012
Here’s a short, sharp response to Ian McEwan’s new novel: wow.
This is writing that is so clever and accomplished, it makes much else seem incompetent. Sweet Tooth isn’t that novel you will fall totally in love with and cherish. It’s too smart and wry for that. But it is quietly dazzling.
It’s about a young beautiful woman who almost by accident joins the British spy service.
It’s the Cold War 1970s, and Serena is drafted into a project called Sweet Tooth, whereby the secret service’s MI5 basically bankrolls writers and publishers who oppose communism.
If you think this is far-fetched, well, of course, it happened here, with the journal Quadrant, which still, to this day, sees itself as a kind of Cold War warrior, a voice of conservatism amongst the rat-baggery leftism of the literati.
There are meetings described in Sweet Tooth that are terrible and funny. Because feminism was still in its mainstream infancy, Serena has to cope with patronising arrogance, and it’s brilliantly imagined by McEwan.
She’s sent out to offer a promising young writer a kind of no-strings-attached bursary, to encourage him to write more of his anti-communist essays and fiction that has the good guys winning.
When he writes a doomsday novel, MI5 is appalled. By this time, Serena has fallen in love with him, and it all seems to be heading for disaster.
Sweet Tooth is a romance, it’s a historical novel, and it’s a book about writing. It’s post-modernist in the sense that it is very aware of the hall of mirrors that writing can be.
Like McEwan’s lovely and devastating Atonement, it is also very big on writing responsibility, and how obsessive and dangerous a writer can be.
This seems like an unambitious book, compared, say with the Booker-Prize-winning Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel.
It doesn’t need to strain at all, however, and that’s the pleasure of it.
No fancy shouting here, just a writer who knows all about creating a story to satisfy readers who don’t read to “switch off” but to “switch on”.
- Rosemary Sorensen
BENDIGO’S residential Strategy will be reviewed because of greater than expected growth.
The State Government has announced a grant of $50,000 to carry out the review.
The review is needed because, according to the State Government, 40 per cent of the forecast growth between 2006 and 2031 had already been realised.
Regional Development Parliamentary Secretary Damian Drum made the announcement this morning.
Mr Drum said the Bendigo Residential Strategy Review would deliver greater community and investor certainty, helping the region grow.
“The Bendigo Residential Development Strategy was adopted in 2004 and is currently being audited because of the faster than anticipated growth that has occurred in Bendigo in recent years,” he said.
“Strong residential growth has many flow-on economic benefits and having a clear framework for future development will position Greater Bendigo City Council to undertake more detailed, place-based planning in the future.”
Deputy Premier Peter Ryan said about 40 per cent of the forecast growth between 2006 and 2031 had already been realised.
The Residential Strategy impacts directly on where and how property developments use “infill” parcels of land, range of housing styles and also on housing affordability.
“This project will review the strategy, assess current and estimated land supply and demand and consider various legislative and policy changes,” Mr Ryan said,
“It will also consider the latest demographic data and establish a new strategic framework to guide the long-term residential growth of Greater Bendigo.
“The project will result in a revised residential strategy that will give developers, the community and service providers greater surety and confidence about where land can be developed for residential purposes, and that sufficient land is available to accommodate the City of Greater Bendigo’s future growth.”
Mr Ryan said a contemporary strategic planning framework was essential to the economic development of a large regional centre like Bendigo.
“Clearly identifying future growth options and supporting infrastructure needs will enable the Greater Bendigo City Council and other infrastructure providers to plan their capital works programs well in advance,” he said.
“Identifying long-term growth areas will enable the council and other service authorities to start planning for the delivery of services, thereby minimising the lag time between when residential development occurs and when the services need to be in place.”
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