DEAR News Of The Area,

OUR family has had over a 150-year association with life on and around the Coffs Harbour coastline and the beauty that is the Jetty Foreshores.

My grandparents raised sixteen children on the banks of Coffs Creek.

They were fishermen, lifesavers, footballers and hard-working community-minded people who loved where they lived.

The Mills clan were proud to tell anyone who listened about a joyous childhood and their simple ways of life.

Swimming and fishing in the creek and mastering the surf and the waters around the Jetty, raising Australian champions and leaving a legacy for us kids, our kids and their kids who still treat Coffs like home – to enjoy its natural beauties.

And I know they would all be so proud of the people who have stood up and spoken and said “no” to the residential development plans for the Jetty Foreshores.

Proud of the stance outgoing Mayor Paul Amos and his cohort have taken to block a re-development and re-zoning that would allow multi-level buildings to become a blight on our foreshores.

My late father John Mills OAM is a great example of a man who loved his Jetty who, along with his mates, helped build the walkways around the creek, voluntarily, so locals and tourists alike could enjoy the serenities surrounding this beautiful area.

He was the “unofficial Lord Mayor” of the Jetty – a boy who grew up hanging on the coattails of his fisherman father Bill as they netted for mullet.

He later spent the last 40 years of his life on the Jetty Beach coaching local Nippers and lifesavers – educating them about the joys of the water and about its lifeblood.

The Jetty and all its beauty attracted hundreds from far and wide who lined the beach to farewell my dad on the salty shores of his spiritual home – people who will all be in agreement to “leave it be!”

The place where my dad and his siblings were baptised into these simple ways of life.

He would have led the “no” rally to stop any high rise on and around his beloved Jetty.

“It’s a place for the people,” he would say.

Let’s hope the decision makers take a step back and look back in time and listen to the families who have made Coffs what it is today.

Don’t let “the Johnny-come-latelies”, as my Dad used to call them, ruin a good thing.

Don’t let them spoil the Coffs Harbour playground that we know and love.

It’s a “no” from all of us.

Regards,
Suzanne HANSON (nee Mills),
On behalf of the Mills and extended families.