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Pollution campaigner a champion of the peopleCharles Briers, 1939-2007 |
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Pollution campaigner a champion of the peopleCharles Briers, 1939-2007 |
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Unassuming
in nature, Charles William Briers nevertheless gained a public profile
in Sydney as the founding member and president from 1998 to 2005 of
Residents Against Polluting Stacks (RAPS) which has long campaigned for
air filters in Sydney's M5 East and other long road tunnels.
When he heard of the plans for the M5 East tunnel at a public meeting in 1998, it was clear to Briers that the decision to vent all the pollution through a 40-metre-high, unfiltered stack into the heavily populated Wolli Valley was morally and ethically wrong.
He saw it as a politically driven decision, made in secret, without consultation with independent experts and the public. His concern led to RAPS and a campaign that was to include thousands of residents, an international tunnel ventilation workshop, three parliamentary inquiries, and an M5 East Ventilation Bill.
Briers lobbied members of Parliament, talked with the media, organised and addressed public meetings and demonstrations and appeared before Parliament. Last year the NSW Government finally allocated $50 million to trial filtration in the M5 East tunnel.
Briers was born in
London, the second eldest of five children. He won a scholarship to
grammar school but left school at 15. He trained as a draftsman,
married Georgina (Gina) and came to Australia in 1961.
Briers found work in the NSW Public Works Department and quickly gained promotion until, at 27, he was told his education qualifications wouldn't take him much higher. Ever pragmatic, he applied for and won a commonwealth scholarship to study architecture at the University of NSW. He graduated with honours in 1973, by which time he and Gina had three sons.
As a project manager in some of Australia's largest building companies, including Abigroup, Barclay Mowlem and Graham Evans, Briers helped build large shopping centres and residential buildings.
In 1990 he joined Sydney University as facilities manager, having to manage people and projects as well as political agendas. Those projects included an engineering building, the Eastern Avenue auditorium and refurbishment of the site for the Centre for Peace and Conflict.
Briers
served the community as a volunteer treasurer and president of school
Parents & Citizens associations, as a director of the
university credit union and with the Red Cross and CleanUp Australia.
He travelled extensively, spent many hours with his boys and two grandchildren, played cricket, sailed on Pittwater, followed football, painted with watercolours and was an authority on the American Civil War.
He died suddenly, after complications from a neurological disease, aged 67. He is survived by Gina, sons David, Paul and Adam, daughter-in-law Fay, and grandchildren Katie and Jake.
Mark Curran, Judi Rossi and Paul Briers
| © RAPS Inc. 2007 raps@cominc.com.au |
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