Letters to The City News

A Fair Mardi Gras’
Last Sunday I went to Mardi Gras Fair Day in Victoria Park. I went as a nudist. Despite being clad in rubber bands, Fair Day management complained we should “put our clothes on” as children were present.
Neither was management interested in a police letter explaining our costumes met legal requirements, and threatened to call authorities. As a result I left.
 

I wasn’t aware nudity poses a threat to children, nor that we caused offense to others. Could Mardi Gras please explain why it wasn’t open to reason and refused to accept our costumes’

Stuart Baanstra, Alexandria

Potts Point under threat
Mr Woodhouse is right: Jenner House, Potts Point, is under threat (“Head to Head”, The City News, February 18). The renovation disease process he alludes to is most pernicious when it affects heritage properties.
The standard authorities (Heritage Council, State Government, National Trust etc) have not only lost their protective powers, but now seem to be facilitators of the developer plague, which permeates this State.
Jenner House in Potts Point is a litmus test for heritage properties in NSW’with national, state and local listings for the house and gardens. Well vaccinated, you would think, yet it appears to be headed for a mutation, which would leave it a deformed melange of old and new.
 

Sydney City Council previously recognised the importance of this property and in Dec 07 placed stringent conditions on the current DA specifying no swimming pools, car stackers, driveways, cabanas, etc in the historic gardens, and appropriate modifications to the Northern wing of Jenner.
 

The community wants to trust its elected officials to preserve our heritage for the future and we call on Council to re-affirm its previous decision and protect Jenner House from the profit pandemic.
 

Peter Sheridan AM, Elizabeth Bay