Blatant propaganda for The Landing
Bob Hawes (Peninsula News, July 9) is naive in the extreme if he really thinks that the purpose of the Central Coast Regional Development Corporation's advertisements in the Express Advocate is to engender discussion.
Anybody who reads them can see that they are nothing but blatant propaganda for The Landing project.
Very few of the statements by "community leaders" contain any concrete points that would generate discussion, and in fact, most of them are merely platitudinous repetition of claims that Gosford's "progress" (whatever that means) requires us all to stifle any criticism of the worst features of the scheme or risk being branded as "naysayers" (whatever that means).
The fact is that properly evaluating a project of this complexity is far beyond the capabilities of most laymen who are easily taken in by a few generalities and a couple of romanticised pictures.
Most of the "community leaders" represented in the advertisements would have practically no understanding of the impacts of all the elements that go to make up the plan, so their opinions are of no value other than as persuasive measures.
Judging the social, economic and environmental consequences of the proposal requires experienced professional analysis, and even that is difficult, given the paucity (and doubtful accuracy, in some cases) of the information that has been released by the Central Coast Regional Development Corporation.
The latest ploy of pretending that only phase one of the project will be implemented, while phases two and three are still undetermined, is highly suspicious.
On the face of it, phase one contains all the elements least likely to be carried out, except, of course, for the redevelopment of the Gosford school site which might eventually turn out to be the only result of the whole exercise.
It would be interesting to ask the Central Coast Regional Development Corporation to open up all its background data and reports to professional scrutiny, but my expectation would be that we'd be told this is not possible, because of confidentiality requirements.
Email, 11 Jul 2012
Bruce Hyland, Daleys Point