No option at Veron Rd

I would like to correct a minor error in your article "Veron Rd options to be pursued" in your edition of August 9.

Your report states that I said that "Council's only option is to buy the land."

What I actually said was that council does not have an option to buy this land.

The developer is the only party who can buy this land.

The Catholic Church has given him an option to purchase, subject to Council's approval of his development.

The developer knows that he will face major hurdles obtaining approval because of the environmentally-sensitive nature of the block.

Otherwise he would have purchased the land outright.

The church wants to sell, demonstrated by it having offered it to Council some two years ago.

Why wasn't this land purchased when it was offered?

Council had adequate funds collected from developers for the purpose of buying open space on the Peninsula, which has inadequate open space for the existing population.

I believe that the church has another option and that is to withdraw the land from sale and ensure that this unique block remains unscarred by the developer's bulldozers.

This would be the morally decent thing, instead of going for the developer's 12 pieces of silver (hardly something the Lord Jesus would have approved of).

The main thrust of my address to our councillors was that having no option to buy this land the councillors should instead direct the staff to carefully asses the environmental characteristics of the land, obtain an independent environmental study and list legitimate reasons for Council to refuse the development application.

Unfortunately, our councillors chose to pursue an option that doesn't exist at this point in time.

Bryan Ellis, Umina Save Our Suburbs