Track Designers do not need to destroy CEEC or EEC

Each side have their own ideology and it is this ideology that feeds their position.

Mountain Bikers

• Love the bush
• Love riding
• Find it therapeutic
• It is a great exercise
• Introduces their kids to the bush
• Elements of the track that are important include, shade, trees and shrubs, topography, locality.
• Need tracks that have a direction and a track head to avoid collisions.

Environment Participants

• Want to protect EEC(Endangered Ecological Communities) and CEEC(Critically Endangered Ecological Communities)
• Want to protect the whole ecosystem, trees, shrubs and groundcovers and all of the animals that rely in these as habitat
• What to see the bushland handed down to future generations intact
• Want to be able to walk through the area at a slow and gentle pace. (While walking the tracks it became clear that once the area is designated as a track, this will not be possible. You will be in the way.)

Save Westleigh Park have no problem with the mountain biker’s ideology, in fact we applaud each and every element.  We are certain that the mountain bikers would have no problem with the elements of our ideology. So why did Hornsby Shire Council create a workshop designed to pit the two groups against each other?

During the workshops it became clear through the many presentations of the professional track designer that he can create tracks that meet the needs of mountain bikers anywhere. Give him a blank canvas and he can create a masterpiece.

Destroying our bushland to accommodate mountain bikers is not the answer. Through council inaction Westleigh Park bushland is now at an ecological threshold. Council could solve this problem by using the grant money secured by Matt Kean to purchase land, perhaps old agricultural land, that can be sculpted into a park.

WWF’s Living Planet Report tells us that global wildlife populations fell by 69%, on average, between 1970 and 2018. Australia continues to have the most mammal extinctions in the world. The report tells a disturbing story of continual decline of more than 1,100 wildlife populations in Australia due to pressures from climate change, habitat destruction and introduced predators.

We do not want to live on a planet where wildlife is no longer a part of our daily life. We want to live in an inclusive and nurturing environment, where all can thrive.