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TAMWORTH Regional Council has given the region a chance to make itself a part of Australian folklore with councillors unanimously approving a proposal to name a Moore Creek road “Drop Bear Lane”. The report, which was tabled at Tuesday night’s council meeting, said there was no public road in NSW currently named after the mythical beast, making it the state’s first homage to the fictional-falling predator. “Drop Bears are creature of Australian folklore,” the report by Tamworth Regional Council (TRC) general manager Paul Bennett said. “[They’re] a common source of fireside stories to the young and uninitiated to the Australian bush.” Council has reviewed the proposal under the Geographic Names Board guidelines for the naming of roads and said there was no objection to the use of Drop Bear Lane. Council general manager Paul Bennett saw the funny side of the proposal when it came across his desk. “I laughed and then I wanted to know if there was anything else like it,” he told The Leader. “We had a search and nothing else came up.” Mr Bennett said the proposal for the quirky street name came from residents of adjoining properties near the unnamed road off Upper Moore Creek Rd. “Maybe they all sat around with a bottle of red,” he said of the residents’ planning process. But Mr Bennett has considered some potential downsides to the left-of-field street naming. “There has been some mixed response,” Mr Bennet said. “Some people have said to me ‘how many times do you think this street sign is going to get stolen?’” The general manager said street names are usually put forward with new subdivisions and that unnamed streets were fairly rare. But the GM said there was nothing stopping developers from being creative with new street names. Mr Bennett said there were firm rules in place preventing streets being named after living people and offensive language. “We have streets named trees, the Windmill Hill estate has streets named after wines,” he said. With council throwing its support behind Drop Bear Lane, the name will now be open for public comment.

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