Councillors catch up on population

After years of protest about the pace of development and the sheer ugliness of most of it, our councillors have finally caught up with the community and resolved to do something about it.

At the council meeting on Tuesday, May 27, Cr Brooks put forward a Notice of Motion to place a "Population Cap" of 169,000 people for the Gosford City local government area.

Save Our Suburbs representatives at the meeting were surprised when there was no opposition from any councillor and the motion was adopted without debate.

Planning NSW expects that this level of population will arrive around 2011 but at present rates of growth it could be much sooner than that.

Part of Cr Brooks' motion refers to a resolution of Council from November 2002 that states "Within the current zoning boundaries of the City Council, work out the density of each precinct to determine the City's future population carrying capacity and what infrastructure is necessary to sustain such a population".

This resolution has not been acted upon by council staff and there is no guarantee that they will perform any more promptly on this new resolution.

State Government Ministers that have seen the Central Coast as a convenient dumping ground for the overflow from Sydney in the past can be expected to ignore our council.

As in the past, they can be expected to force their failed Planning Department to continue the "growth for growth's sake" system that has served them and their developer mates so well in the past.

Save Our Suburbs will be continuing to lobby the State Government and is holding a special meeting next Saturday, June 7, that all residents are invited to attend at Woy Woy South Community Hall at 1pm.

We will have a petition for people to sign if they can't stay for a meeting and information sheets for those wanting to write letters to their favourite Minister.

Copies of our petition will be hand delivered to the Woy Woy Bay house of Special Minister for the Central Coast John Della Bosca the following day.

Bryan Ellis, Umina