Our friends at Fairfax are having a hard time

As Fast News reported last month, Fairfax recently apologised to newsagents for the constant late delivery of the Herald and its other papers, as well as apologising to a senior journalist whom management accused of leaking a story to their rivals at News Ltd. Now perhaps they need to apologise to Redfern. Michael Englert e-mailed Fast News and asked: “Did you see the SMH’s Good Living supplement today? The cover says, ‘HOT SPOTS – A foodie guide to Redfern and beyond’. The story by Helen Greenwood includes a ‘cutesy’ map of the 15 selected food eateries - mentioning two in Redfern and other cafes in Waterloo, Alexandria, Mascot and Rosebery.” Michael points out that the Zensation Teahouse is actually in Surry Hills and the Saint Germain Patisserie looks like Darlington or Chippendale on the Fairfax map which doesn’t even include Redfern Street. They’ve forgotten Redfern, haven’t they? Here’s a newspaper trying to sound trendy by mentioning Redfern but not actually covering the real Redfern eateries. “A true foodies guide to Redfern should include the cafes, restaurants and free food services or subsidised food outlets e.g. Café Cana.” Why not do a real Redfern foodies guide in response to the Fairfax effort, Michael suggested - especially with the Survival Expresso Bar just opening up again?

Balfour Park at last

The Chippendale Resident Group in its recent email newsletter wrote: “Sunday March 30 is an auspicious date for Chippendale. It marks the formal closure of a part of Balfour Street (between Kensington and O’Connor Streets) to make our latest small park. Chippendale has the lowest open space per person of all Sydney suburbs. So, every additional green space we can gain is valuable. Even tiny “pocket parks” (like the street closures on Balfour at Cleveland, and at Shepherd at Broadway) have a positive beneft for us in a number of ways. “But there’s an important community lesson with the new Balfour Street Park (yet to have an offcial name). Moves to have this street closure and park started many years ago when a small group of residents approached Council. Despite getting rejected, deferred numerous times, being buried in municipal bureaucracy, and becoming sidelined through Council amalgamations, the idea simply was not allowed to die. We salute the residents who kept persisting and nagging on the matter. They never gave up. Eventually, the park will be properly landscaped. It will link across O’Connor Street with the main park intended for the brewery site redevelopment and with the strip park to be created down the side of Wellington Street. It will also become part of the long-advocated ‘green link’ pedestrian and cycle-friendly way going from Eveleigh through Redfern, Chippendale, and Ultimo into Darling Harbor.”