Keep Sydney Open has announced a new core policy, ‘agent of change’, in retaliation to Sydney’s live music venue issues.
The new principle, which has already successfully been implemented in London, San Francisco and Melbourne, would see better protection of pre-existing cultural venues.
The idea is that any new developments built near these venues, like apartment buildings, would become the ‘agent of change’, meaning they would then be responsible for sound attenuation.
Keep Sydney Open has described the agent of change as, “a simple approach to handling noise-related disputes involving cultural venues.”
KSO say Melbourne was one of the first cities in the world to adopt the new agent and have since been regarded “a global success story in cultivating a vibrant music economy”.
That’s not all that needs to be done though according to KSO. They say that to revive and protect Sydney’s cultural heritage we need to take a broader approach.
The party has created a list of definitive policy actions that they believe must be implemented to revive NSW’s cultural industries.
Keep Sydney Open say a stocktake of culturally significant venues is needed and they need to be protected as assets of “community value and cultural heritage”. As well as that, they suggest state-provided funding for retrofit venues threatened by noise complaints and mandatory soundproofing and insulation in new developments and redevelopments that are near existing venues.
Tyson Koh, Keep Sydney Open’s spokesperson says, “Venues are closing en masse and the State’s artistic and cultural heritage is being decimated in the process.
“NSW is crying out for a fair, consistent, and above all transparent approach to issues involving noise from venues.
“This is already a serious issue. As the city densifies it will only get worse. We need a forward-thinking policy to mitigate this problem now.”
Keep Sydney Open are set to take the new policies to the NSW state election on 23rd of March.
