Category: Advocacy

The DA has been created and will be reviewed by the Sydney City North Planning Panel (SCNPP).

The only thing that can influence the impact and the scale of this development is the COMMUNITY GETTING INVOLVED. We need submissions! Please make time for this important issue that will impact on the Westleigh community and our quality of life. NOW is the time to have your say!

Below is a special edition of the Westleigh Progress Association’s Avacare newsletter highlighting their concerns.

On 13 September 2023 Council resolved to provide owner’s consent for the lodgement of a Development Application (DA) for Westleigh Park.

The application has now been lodged.

Residents must make a submission with regard to the DA.

The Westleigh Progress Association have created a special edition of Avacare and this is the content of that edition.

The Westleigh Progress Association has a number of concerns about this development. We hope that Westleigh residents carefully consider the impact Westleigh Park is going to have on the amenity of our peaceful, bushland suburb.

The main concerns of the WPA are:

Traffic

• Sefton Rd – a limited-access road?
• Increased traffic on Duffy Ave and Quarter Sessions Rd
• Construction vehicles on our suburban streets – for years!
• All Stage 1 construction traffic will use Quarter Sessions Rd & the blind hill exit near Corang Rd

Funding

• Estimated cost: $ 82,836,600
• Construction has to be staged as money isn’t available for the whole project. Council is prioritising Hornsby Park over Westleigh Park
• It will be many years before the Park is complete; an athletics field won’t be constructed for at least 10 years

Environmental Impact

• Mountain bike tracks are being permitted through critically endangered ecological areas
• Contaminated soil is being disturbed to use as fill behind an 8-metre high wall to create a playing field
• Synthetic turf being used on the fields
• Road being built over Sydney Water’s critical infrastructure
• Floodlighting & noise impact

A solution to most of these problems is to revise the scale of the project!

Is Westleigh really the right location for a regional sporting facility?

Why can’t Westleigh Park be a smaller, local facility?

MAKE A SUBMISSION VOICING YOUR OPINION ON THE DEVELOPMENT:

Send your submission to: devmail@hornsby.nsw.gov.au
Subject: Development Application Enquiry: DA/975/2023 – Westleigh Park – Sporting Facility – Staged Construction – PAN-368184
by 20/11/2023

(Please cc: westleighprogress@gmail.com so the WPA can understand what residents are most concerned about.)

Hornsby Shire Council held their mandatory public meeting on Tues 4th April concerning the Draft Plan of Management for Westleigh Park. Many residents, community groups and concerned citizens attended.

https://yoursay.hornsby.nsw.gov.au/westleigh-park-plan-management

It was very pleasing to hear the community raise the same concerns we have been raising for over a year now.

We also received the following email from a local which expresses more than we can the dismay felt regarding Council’s meeting.

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“I attended last night’s meeting at Hornsby RSL. What an unfunny joke!

We were treated like kindergarten children.

We were allowed to ask one question at a time but not allowed to question the answers in reply.

(The resident felt) those answers (could be considered as being):

• sometimes so brief and curt as to be disrespectful of the questioner
• often waffling and vague
• frequently only one response to a two part question.

This was no open and frank discussion. Ratepayers were effectively muzzled from expressing their opinion.

It was a “tick the box” exercise on the part of Council.

Imagine the irony when I saw the Council’s notices this morning on a thin border area of bush (we believe this is an area of the endangered Duffys Forest) near Westleigh.

So Council thinks it’s OK for Mountain Bikers to trail for miles through endangered bushland at the proposed Westleigh Park, but unacceptable to do the same on an area down the road because it  “damages the native plants and habitat for animals.”

What hypocrisy! What contradiction! What an admission! What double standards!

The notice goes on to say that “building trails or jumps is a fun and great way to spend time outdoors but just not here”.

How can Council say that when the trail builders don’t own the land, and in the case of Westleigh Park never had permission?”