Ample grounds to protect bush, says ACF branch

A court decision last year "gave ample grounds" to reject a retirement village proposal which would "destroy rare bushland at Woy Woy", according to a regional conservation group.

In recommending its approval, Gosford Council staff had misrepresented the nature of the court decision, according to the Central Coast branch of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Branch president Mr Mark Snell said that a council staff report had continued to portray the court judgement as based on a technicality, rather than based on environmental impact.

"In fact, the rejection of the development was made by the judge entirely on environmental grounds," he said.

Mr Snell was commenting on six extra pages of background material which will be added to a planning report about the proposal to build on the "rare bushland" at the corner of Veron Rd and Hillview St, Woy Woy.

The original planning report told councillors that there were insufficient grounds to reject the application and that the Council would be unlikely to be able to successfully defend an appeal in the Land and Environment Court.

"It appears council staff have not sought legal advice from their solicitors on this matter," said Mr Snell.

Mr Snell said that both the court case and advice objectors had received from the Environmental Defender's Office indicated that the Council had ample grounds to reject the application and that a rejection would be upheld in a court appeal.

The application is expected to come before council tomorrow night, Tuesday, May 1.

The extra material portrayed the court decision against the development as being based on the technical inadequacy of a Species Impact Statement, Mr Snell said.

"However, the court actually based its decision on evidence provided by four ecologists, in addition to the SIS," Mr Snell said.

At paragraph 102 of his judgement, Justice Bignold stated that his decision was made balancing the "significant environmental impact" with the "matters weighing in favour of the proposal".

Mr Snell said council staff had also continued to place an over-reliance on a "concurrence report" from the Department of Environment and Conservation.

Council staff had cited comments made by the judge during the course of the case about the absence of a concurrence report.

Mr Snell said that, in his written judgement, the judge had merely observed (par 15) as an aside that the concurrence of the Director of National Parks and Wildlife had not been sought.

"It was not central to the findings," Mr Snell said.

"In a judgement of more than 9600 words, only 21 referred to the Director's concurrence.

"The bottom line is there is only 11 hectares of Umina Coastal Sandplain Woodland remaining anywhere in the world.

"It is gazetted as an Ecologically-Endangered Community and all of it is under threat of extinction in one way or another.'

Mr Snell said the proposed site represented over 10 per cent of the "rare bushland".

He said: "We need every little bit of it to give its survival every possible chance.

"We are asking councillors to reject the application on the grounds that the significance of its environmental impact is too great to allow it to proceed."

Mr Snell repeated the words of Justice Bignold when he said that the "impact justifies the epithet 'significant' in view of the very small overall areas of UCSW".

The extra six pages of background information will be added to the planning report in response to a letter from the ACF branch, which claimed that the original report was "inaccurate, inadequate and unbalanced" and "misleads councillors".

While denying the claims, council staff agreed to provide "background information ... beneficial to assist in clearly understanding the issues", after the ACF branch took the matter to the NSW Ombudsman.

Mr Snell welcomed the additional material, stating that it described the history of a previous similar application for the same land, and an appeal to the Land and Environment Court.

However, Mr Snell said he was disappointed that council staff had not changed their recommendation for approval of the proposal.

Press release, 24 Apr 2007 Mark Snell, Australian Conservation Foundation