BizBriefs

Council has received a DA for use of the former St Andrew's Uniting Church, at 2 Phillip Street, as a restaurant and bar; the site includes La Porchetta restaurant and Echo Lounge which has ceased trading ... The former Telecom Business Centre, at 211-213 Church Street, is expected to open soon as The Corporate nightclub, bar, restaurant ... The upmarket Open Kitchen, at 55 Phillip Street, has opened for business ... Council has received a DA for a Thai restaurant on the corner of George and Horwood Place ... Port Bar Restaurant, at the Charles Street RiverCat wharf, has approval for a boutique brewery on site ... The application has been approved for the former St Peter's Uniting Church, on the corner of Church and Palmer streets, to be used as a restaurant and bar.

Cabcharge interested in Sydney Ferries

Cabcharge Australia chairman, Reg Kermonde, said the company would be interested in acquiring Sydney Ferries if it was privatised by the NSW Government. "Our company would be interested provided that it would serve as a value-added product for the company and we could operate it in the interest of consumers," he said. Mr Owen Eckford, who has been appointed deputy CEO, worked for five years with the State Transit Authority as general manager, ferry services. A recommendation in the independent enquiry's report on Sydney Ferries, has recommended that the RiverCat service between Rydalmere and Parramatta cease. The NSW Government is expected to decide the future of Sydney Ferries in 2008.

'Proposal completely unacceptable': State MP

Tanya Gadiel, State MP for Parramatta, said the recommendation calling for the cessation of the RiverCat service between Rydalmere and Parramatta, in the report of the independent enquiry into State Ferries, should be "completely unacceptable to the Government." Ms Gadiel said in Hansard the great concern to herself and her community was that Sydney Ferries Corporation always had been obsessed with cutting off the Parramatta Rivercat service. "The proposal is completely unacceptable to my community," she said.