Australia's Live Music Office has joined calls for Newcastle council to back its live music scene as the city develops a draft live music strategy to prevent venues being shut down from noise complaints.
It comes after Newcastle council's Deputy Lord Mayor Declan Clausen said it should follow fellow NSW city Wollongong's lead, after it changed to the s.149 planning certificate, which identifies the CBD as an entertainment precinct between the hours of 5pm-midnight.
As Newcastle Herald reports, 65 new small bars and cafes have opened in the Wollongong CBD in the past three years.
“We didn’t want our CBD and the precincts around it to be considered a retirement village,” Wollongong Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said.
“We had to indicate to anyone that was going to buy an apartment in the city that it had implications and you must expect to be caught up in the nightlife.”
In a statement to The Music, the Live Music Office's John Wardle said Newcastle should adopt the same changes Wollongong council made given the results.
"The recent evidence provided by Wollongong City Council to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into the Music and Arts Economy speaks not only to the effectiveness of the s.149 Planning Certificates in reducing land use conflict in the Illawarra, but also to the range of other measures that were taken across functions within Council to promote the evening economy," Wardle said.
"These guide not only the town planners and development assessment team, but also the events team/events toolkit, rangers, community safety meetings, and the cultural programs.
"Having been in place now from 2014, there’s been enough time to evaluate the strategy operation, which has delivered real results for the cultural and economic development of the city.
"This is a model for regional and suburban councils in NSW that are looking for guidance in supporting not only the growth of their evening economies, but also for effective measures for reducing land use conflict from residential development in town centres and their CBD."
