Name For Wetland Gets Stuck In Mud

Newcastle Herald

Tuesday July 24, 2007

By FRANCES THOMPSON

EVERYONE has different way of describing the hidden wetland sometimes known as Paterson lagoon, swamp or pond.

It has never had an official name and attempts to give one to the hidden beauty recently have become bogged.

The Paterson Rotary Club asked Dungog Shire Council to name it after former mayor and Rotarian Allan Fairhall, who died in 2006.

"He wasn't just a resident of the Paterson area, he was Mr Paterson," a close friend said after Mr Fairhall's death.

Rotary's initial moves were opposed by the Paterson Progress Association.

Association president and Rotarian Lindsay Kidd said members believed not one person, councillor or group was responsible for the waterway's rejuvenation, which started in 1988.

The association wanted the lagoon to be known officially as Paterson Pond and the surrounding land identified as the Allan Fairhall Reserve.

Rotary's immediate past president Alan Moir said yesterday he wrote to the council with an idea similar to that of the Progress Association's to "appease the disquiet".

The council has invited the Rotary executive and progress association to a meeting to resolve the name.