Gosford waterfront may stall at the drawings stage
The Council is forging ahead with its highly speculative scheme for the Gosford waterfront, planning to spend $2.2 million of our money on a master planning exercise.
There is no indication that funding for this extravaganza will ever become available to carry it beyond the coloured-drawings stage.
The Administrator justifies this decision with a claim that positive feedback on the proposal was received from 93 per cent of Central Coast residents, which, right there, is enough to show that any consultation was a complete sham.
Mother Theresa wouldn't get a 93 per cent approval rating in any real-world survey, so we can see what reliance to put on the support that the Administrator avers is so overwhelming.
This is just another case of the Council tailoring the facts to suit the decision it had already taken, regardless of what opinion might be expressed by the community.
There have been numerous iterations of this waterfront thought bubble to date, most of the other proposals superior to the one now determined on by the Council.
There was, in fact, one prepared by a disinterested local group that was well worth pursuing, assuming that some preliminary expressions of investment interest could have been found.
However, the present proposition is notable for being dismally mediocre in certain aspects and absurdly unrealistic in others.
So it is quite worrying, given that the dismally mediocre parts are the ones most likely to be carried out, if anything comes of this exercise at all.
Taking into account the Council's record of success in these enterprises, perhaps our best hope is that it never gets beyond the coloured-drawings stage, even if it does cost us $2.2 million.
SOURCE:
Email, 14 Mar 2023
Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy