Save Dubbo's Green Space group want more environmental considerations

These new housing estates will have wide street roads for vehicles and people, as well as cycling paths and footpaths for walkers, including safe paths for people in wheelchairs.

These estates as built environments will have dedicated green spaces for a community park that dabbles as a playground and picnic sites for the people that live on the estate, and they're literally minutes from basic services and shops.

She is nostalgic to see a bit of the early days she was growing up in Dubbo blending her vision of an improved environment in her community inspired by the green spaces in countries she has frequented over the years.

Mrs Cross-Antony, who was born in Dubbo, has joined with Dubbo Environment Group's Margaret McDonald, and brought together 950 residents to form the Save Dubbo's Green Space community forum on social media.

They're making noises to have their say and be heard by the Dubbo Regional Council, housing developers, and state government agencies implementing the city's urban design plans that are currently progressing through to 2040.

The group is also collecting signatures on their Save Regand Park petition, which they will formally submit to council.

"We don't have an issue with sporting fields because we have plenty of spaces they can use, but this area at Regand Park is promised to be the Centennial Park in Dubbo," Mrs Cross-Antony said.

"At the time of purchase [in 2014], council's parks and gardens division had done a plan for the area...that plan has not been made public. We're ratepayers, we've got a battle on our hands to save our green spaces."

With one-third of the state's annual gross domestic product earnings come from regions and with many people gravitating to live and work in many industries and businesses around the Dubbo-Orana region, Mrs Cross-Antony said housing estates are erected "like mushrooms".

"People need houses but they're building them in smaller blocks, you can touch the gutters. We need to be building houses that are environmentally conscious, not squeezing them."

In an earlier submission to the council's 2040 housing plan for the city, Mrs Cross-Antony stated her views that the planning was "poorly" conceived because it created "less spaces for [planting] trees [that resulted] to increased energy consumption, heat, and climate degradation".

"A lot of people are coming to live in country towns like ours and they want their own houses built...but they should be building houses in a sustainable way...not built so close together you can't have a garden," she said.

"When it comes to summertime, we have very hot summers here and if they don't have vegetation then people are running air conditioners 24/7 to keep cool and that is a problem for the environment in itself."

The grand design of regional cities such as Dubbo, the main business hub in western NSW, is contained in the state government's Urban Design for Regional NSW guide.

The guide is seen as a roadmap for regional councils when planning and assessing their built environment which these Dubbo residents are seeking to be involved in with the spaces around the city.

One of the frameworks in the regional plan called for "greener places that create healthier, more liveable and sustainable urban environment" where residents can indulge in active living such as spaces for walking, exercise, or cycling.

Mrs McDonald said the residents in her group are purely concerned with ensuring all levels of government are implementing projects that provide a certain percentage of the city's green spaces for liveability, which means it's an ideal place to live because amenities for a better lifestyle are available for residents.

"From the 1980s, I was on the children's services committee and we have been lobbying the council to provide this provision for green spaces and they always responded that it is too expensive," Mrs McDonald said.

"That doesn't give toddlers and parents and people wanting to walk dogs in their own area much spaces for liveability or aesthetics or spaces and that continue till today.

"We used to have housing estates where people have yards and trees...what's the best way for us to reduce our carbon emission is to make plenty use of the northern sun.

"They should be giving us more advice on how we can have energy-efficient houses and we think this is a problem common in other regional cities as well."