UPDATE: Singleton Council has informed The Argus the twenty original submissions, and the OPUS Peer review, have been provided to Councillors.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And, they are now available on the Council’s website as an addendum to the business paper.
Original report:
The report local Councillor’s will read before making a decision about a proposed service station at the busy intersection of the Bridgman Road and the New England Highway is missing vital information.
Both the Independent Peer Review of the Flood Impact Assessment and individual submissions, are not included in the report which is on the agenda at Monday night’s extraordinary Council meeting.
The site is located in a high hazard floodway and in the last 10 years two other similar proposals have been refused – one commercial development on the corner opposite the site (on the vineyard site) and one further along Bridgman Rd on the western side (another service station).
The peer review by Opus International Consultants was available for the public viewing on Singleton Council’s website under Development Application (DA) Tracking during the exhibition period.
A review that concludes: “Therefore, based on the Floodplain Risk Management Study, and Council’s adoption of the study, the proposed development (commerical building) is not suitable in its current location.”
It has not been included in the report along with 20 individual submissions.
However, a report concerning another DA on the agenda - and to be decided at the same meeting - includes eight submissions with the names redacted.
Consultant Strategic and Social Impact Planner, Jan Fallding, says the report is terribly deficient, particularly in relation to its assessment under s79C, and the SLEP 2013 CL7.2 regarding the floodplain.
She wants to know why the following are not included in the report:
- Full copies of each of the 20 submissions, and 9 secondary submissions (with or without redacted names);
- the full copy of the independent assessment of the applicant’s flood information;
- there is not even a mention in the report of this assessment;
- a proper assessment of the submissions;
- any comments from the SES (if they were even sought);
- any comments from Council’s Floodplain Management Committee;
- references to the NSW Floodplain Development Manual 2005;
- and a copy of the RMS advice.
Mrs Fallding also wants to “know why the DA documents that were previously publicly available on Council’s DA tracker no longer on the website?”
She also notes the issues in her two submissions have not been fully addressed.
“They are not even summarised in the table of submission issues in the report,” she observes.
The meeting is on Monday night at 5.30pm, and this item is open to the public.
