Sydney Morning Herald: The NSW government is under growing pressure to reconsider its plan to move the Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta and sell off its inner-city Sydney site to property developers.

Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton, former NSW premier Bob Carr, businessmen Geoff Cousins, Graeme Wood, Trevor Kennedy and Jack Cowin, former Art Gallery of NSW director Edmund Capon and Penelope Seidler are among more than 170 prominent people who have signed an open letter to be published in Thursday’s Sydney Morning Herald with the heading “Please Don’t Destroy the Powerhouse”.

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ABC News: Actress Cate Blanchett and former New South Wales premier Bob Carr are among more than 10,000 people to have signed a petition calling for plans to relocate Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum to be scrapped.

The NSW Government is planning to move the museum from its home in Ultimo to the western suburbs, most likely to a site in Parramatta.

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Parramatta Advertiser: THE debate of where the Powerhouse Museum should be relocated to is heating up with Parramatta councillors objecting to it being constructed at a site on the river.

At a council meeting last night, councillors discussed potential sites for the museum once it was moved from Ultimo to western Sydney.

All councillors were against the museum being built at the old David Jones carpark site, on the riverbank in Phillip St.

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Written by Powerhouse Museum Alliance member Trevor Kennedy, first published in The Australian.

The NSW government seems to be determined to prosecute one of the most outrageous acts of vandalism we have seen in many years: the destruction of the Powerhouse Museum.

It seems extraordinary that what otherwise appears to be a sensible and reasonable government would embark on such an exercise without appropriate consultation and consideration of many of the critically important aspects involved.

Just think for a moment how lucky Sydneysiders are (and have continued to be since the Queen Victoria Building was saved from demolition) for the precinct we enjoy. Start at the Art Gallery of NSW, then there is the Mint and the Barracks, Australian Museum, the Botanic Gardens, Opera House, Police Museum, Customs House, Museum of Contemporary Art, Harbour Bridge, The Rocks, SH Ervin, Observatory, Barangaroo, Darling Harbour, Maritime Museum, Chinese Gardens, Powerhouse — plus the cathedrals and other sandstone treasures.

This a feast for the eyes, the heart and the soul for Australians and tourists from everywhere. Why would you want to destroy one of its gems?

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