Ed, Maclean is soon to be a hive of activity with a modern-day Cane Harvest Festival set to be held on the 12th of April, and the annual Highland Gathering to be held over the Easter weekend. The Highland Gathering event draws in locals and tourists alike and Maclean becomes alive with the Scottish spirit. Many of those tourists (with caravans) have been parking along River St opposite the bottom pub for years, whilst locals and tourists (with just their cars) have been lining either side of River St from the bottom pub, down as far as the BP, to be able to attend the band parade through River St on the Saturday morning. 2025 is a new “era” for Maclean. Since the 2024 Highland Gathering, Maclean has had the delightful honour of being home to the Clarence Valley Council’s “shared user improvement” which has seen part of River St turn into a “shared user path” between the boulevard and Dwartes Lane. As a result of this, the river-side parking on River St has been removed and turned into a shared user path (where opposite, on the resident-side of River St, lies a perfectly functional path which is used daily by pedestrians and cyclists without an issue). This “shared user path, will become an issue for parking in April, with attendees of the Cane Harvest Festival and Highland Gathering forced to seek alternate parking arrangements, potentially blocking the narrow back streets of the Maclean CBD, the overcrowding of the IGA carpark, and potentially even illegal parking across residents’ driveways, or parking on private property. Jake Murray, Maclean