Kay Williams to stand for council

Pearl Beach resident Ms Kay Williams has announced she will stand in the September local government elections as part of the Central Coast Alliance.

Ms Williams said she was concerned that Gosford Council, being the sole government agency responsible for protecting local and regional heritage, needed to do much more to promote an awareness of local heritage.

"Failure to do so has put the southern end of Mann St, our most important civic precinct, at risk by a proposed 52 metre height limit and the destruction of War Memorial Park and the Rotary Foreshore Commemorative Park, and importantly the destruction of the last intact element of the original foreshore.

"The wider community is not aware of what is at stake, and the SSS report to Minister Hazzard is misleading," she said.

"The community is being hoodwinked if it thinks Gosford Foreshore Development Plan stage one represents best practice in planning and development.

"It is also hoodwinked over the details of what is intended."

Ms Williams said stage one of the Landing infringes the Burra Charter, part nine of the Commonwealth Government's State of Development Report and the OECD Paris Declaration (2011) including its statement on heritage as a driver of development.

She said the proposal would affect a number of significant heritage items including the Gosford War Memorial Park, the last remnant of the original cliff face of Gosford before the bay was in-filled, the curtilage and view from Old Christ Church, the Memorial Fountain and gardens and the curtilage of the School of Arts and its heritage development potential.

"This would be, by any standard, an appalling outcome for the people of Gosford, commercial alienation of community land and destruction of a major heritage precinct," said Ms Williams.

"It shows a contempt for the community organisations that have contributed to an area which Gosford Council holds in trust for the whole community.

"We need to focus on what we are losing if this proposal goes ahead.

"In addition to the two war memorials proposed to be relocated to an entertainment centre entranceway which is in itself an infringement of their heritage listing and totally inappropriate for a cenotaph, we are losing a dignified commemorative space which was set aside for community use by our civic fathers as far back as 1881.

"Each memorial site has been carefully chosen and located by various community groups to enable commemoration," said Ms Williams.

"The careful placement of these memorials speaks eloquently of the community's intention over many generations, and increasingly of late, to preserve and protect the memory of our war dead by providing a location for contemplative remembrance every day of the year, and for various community groups, not only on Anzac Day in the renamed Anzac Park.

"The War Memorial Park has evolved as an important record of our indebtedness to all those who paid the supreme sacrifice and is without question the most significant commemorative location of Gosford's social history in the twentieth century.

"With 10,000 plus community signatures on a petition opposing the development, and several key stakeholder groups vocal in their opposition, this must surely tell state government and local council it is time to rethink their proposals.

"Gosford's future cannot be secured by a development proposal which so divides the community and is so out of touch with planning principles enunciated as national and international best practice.

"The proposed loss is an unthinkably high price for a community to pay," said Ms Williams.

Media Release, 11 Jul 2012

Kay Williams, Pearl Beach