Former Wyong councillor to stand in local ward

Umina resident Mr Carl Veugen, a former Wyong councillor, has announced he will be a candidate for the West Gosford Ward, which covers the Peninsula, when council elections are held later this year.

He will stand for the Save Tuggerah Lakes party, which intends to field a candidate in all five wards of the new Local Government Area.

Several Save Tuggerah Lakes candidates were successfully elected to the former Wyong Council including Mr Carl Veugen, Mr Lloyd Taylor and Mr Adam Troy.

Mr Veugen said he had been a resident of Umina since 2000 except for the period during which he served as a Wyong councillor when he resided in a caravan in that LGA.

He was a plumber by trade but is not currently employed due to a back injury.

Mr Veugen said the issues he was most concerned about included sea level rise, the overall health of Brisbane Water and the local beaches and the reliability of infrastructure such as the Peninsula's sewer networks.

He said initiatives like the installation of gross pollution traps were dependent on funding programs.

"They are not going to happen overnight but we could get the funding programs going," he said.

Mr Veugen said the future development of the whole Woy Woy Peninsula needed to be reviewed so that infrastructure funding could be achieved to support the expected population growth.

He said problems such as erosion and the build up of silt in Brisbane Water's navigation channels needed to be addressed.

"There is lots of modelling available and smart people who know about ocean movements and sediments in the estuary who could give us advice but something has to be done and we have got to talk to the experts and seek the best advice."

Mr Veugen said his new-look party was "still formulating its policies" but members had agreed that, if elected, they would be free to vote according to their own convictions and not along party lines.

"I am still talking to locals about what they need and then we will have to look at how we will be able to fund and fix the things that need to be fixed.

"I would love to see both the Labor and Liberal parties also choose new, smart people to run for the new council," he said.

The party's founding member Mr Lloyd Taylor said: "We are getting the message out there that there is a political party from the Central Coast that is of the people and for the people," said.

"STL has put it on notice to the major parties that our lakes and waterways are important," Mr Taylor said.

He said his party had successfully lobbied for more gross pollution traps to be installed around Tuggerah Lakes.

"Brisbane Water doesn't have modern gross pollution traps and that is what Wyong's waterways used to be like," he said.

Interviews, 30 Mar 2017

Lloyd Taylor, STL

Carl Veugen, STL

Reporter: Jackie Pearson