14 September 2021 - Ordinary

Okay, welcome everybody to tonight's ordinary meeting. I'd like to start by acknowledging the Dharug and Darkinjung people as traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury, and pay respect to any elders past, present and emerging. So firstly, do we have any apologies? I think that we're missing Councillor Reynolds and Councillor Ross. Councillor Reynolds has an apology, and I would assume Councillor Ross is coming late. Somebody wish to move that? Barry.

And then we have the confirmation of the minutes—sorry, any declarations of interest for this evening? Councillor —Councillor Richards? Councillor Rasmussen.

Sorry, Councillor Richards, go first.

Thank you, Councillor Rasmussen. Item 172, significant non-pecuniary interest. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. And Councillor Rasmussen.

Sorry, Councillor Rasmussen, the same item, was it?

Okay. Sorry, Councillor Rasmussen.

Oh, I'm sorry, can you hear me?

No, now I can.

Oh, sorry. Hang on, let me just get rid of all this junk. Possibly

Should realise I didn't hand over to the GM, so I'll do that in a moment.

My interest is 172, and I've got a pecuniary interest, so I will be leaving. Okay,

Thank you. All right, and we'll get you to put those on the table when we get up to that, and I'll just hand over to the general manager. Sure.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.1.8 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council meetings. The provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary. If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting. The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations, and the recordings are stored on Council's record management system.

For the benefit of those persons who will be addressing the Council tonight, it is expected that you will refrain from making any insult, allegation or personal reflection against any person present or not at this meeting. This request relates to both your address to Council and any answers given in response to questions from Councillors. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. And I just had a message that we didn't have a seconder on the apologies. I didn't call it out, but I believe the Deputy Mayor seconded that. Yep. And—

Primary, I seconded that. Yep. And before we move on to agenda items subject to public address, I believe we have a condolence motion from Councillors Zamprogno.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to present the condolence motion that I circulated to councillors about the passing of Peter Speet. Seconder for that. Councillor Richards. Go ahead, Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you. Mr Mayor, we woke on Sunday to the very sad news of the passing of Peter Speet, former captain and group captain within the Hawkesbury RFS, very longstanding member of the Oakville Rural Fire Service, and a very dear friend to the Oakville community and to my family in particular. He gave 63 years of service to the RFS. The bulk of that brigade's entire existence was absolutely founding to its early days and its growth, and the Oakville Brigade now stands proudly as one of the most active and involved brigades not only within the Hawkesbury but within the entire state.

He passed at the age of 79 after a prolonged period of ill health, and yet despite that, it was only last November that we gathered with friends and family and many dignitaries to honour him at a function where he had the rare honour of having a fourth clasp added to his national medal, which is in addition to the Australian Fire Service Medal that he already held for his exceptionally long service. And despite the fact that at that time he had become a double amputee, at his age he insisted that he would stand and cross the room. To receive that honour, and he did. And it is an occasion that will live in my mind for the rest of my life. He was the ultimate Hawkesbury local boy, having been schooled at Oakville Public School and then at Richmond High.

Former associates, even school friends and tennis partners, have contacted me within the recent days to give their own reminiscence of Peter's life, and that's been a special privilege. He married his beloved wife Rosalind in 1967 , and she succeeds him, as well as daughters Sally , Katrina, Melanie and Heidi, and a large tribe of grandchildren, an extended family. I'd like to recognise sister Diane McKinnon and brother Ron and the extended family, and to convey our condolences to them. They celebrated 54 years of marriage in February.

The Speech paddock was a central training ground for the mentoring of whole multiple generations of young people into not only the finer arts of firefighting, but hose and reel events. And Peter was notoriously competitive on behalf of the Oakville Brigade, and the glass case at Oakville Bushfire Station is too full to count of ribbons and trophies. He was a man of enormous practical wisdom in that laconic style that farmers generally have. He was a very well-read man. He was a generous and community-hearted man. He was a good father. He was a personal mentor to me, and I'll miss him terribly.

So I think that it's appropriate for Council to recognise the extraordinary service of this man. We will not see his like again, and our thoughts are with the family. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thanks, Councillor Zamprogno. Did anybody else wish to say anything? If not, we'll note that condolence motion. I guess we should vote on that theoretically, do we or not? Either motion

Mr Mayor, the motion before us has that we will conduct a minute's silence and write to the Speet family and communicate the council's thanks. So I think the concurrence of the chamber.

Yes, so we'll go. All those in favour, please raise your hand to clear that carried. And we'll now observe one minute's silence.

Thank you, everybody. We now have—

We now have one item subject to public address, which is item 172. So I'll get Councillor Richards, then Councillor Rasmussen, to read your interests onto the tape and leave the meeting before we proceed.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. My interest is significant non-pecuniary interest. I've been an active part of securing funding for this infrastructure project in the past, including being at the most recent announcement of funding. Thank you.

Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. My interest is a pecuniary one in that during that 172 item, the Grose River Bridge is extensively brought into mention, and the Grose River Bridge is to be built on part of my land. So I will be leaving the meeting.

Thank you.

Okay, both councillors have left the meeting. So our first speaker is Mr Michael Morris.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm speaking in support of this motion based on the pending submission closing date of this Friday, which I'll address shortly. I thank you to Council for incorporating previous feedback. However, there are several points which could be quickly refined or removed to better reflect the community concern evidenced by the overwhelming negative commentary and feedback about transport's preferred route. For example, the report says Council welcomes a bypass of Richmond and North Richmond. I urge Council to remove the words North Richmond, as this is not a bypass of North Richmond, but rather a diversion with devastating economic, social, visual, noise and flood resilience impacts.

The report states that Council welcomes the opportunity for town centre revitalisation and active transport links, and I urge the removal of this section for the following reasons. The Bells Line of Road through the shops at North Richmond will remain a major route with 12 to 24,000 vehicle movements per day, limiting any opportunity for significant revitalisation along the road corridor. All current business is facilitated by off-street parking, so unless Council shares Transport's view that a few noise walls and plants is an improvement, there will be no revitalisation of this corridor. Transport's report identifies North Richmond as the last major settlement on the Bells Line of Road before the Blue Mountains, with a greater focus on pass-through traffic.

Tim Webster, the project manager, is on record saying that based on past projects, the businesses in North Richmond will suffer a loss of trade, but now says there are benefits. However, as identified, they still have no socio-economic analysis or data to support this new statement. In relation to active transport, the preferred route delivers no active transport solution nor makes provision for it. Noting this quote from Transport's report: The yellow and hybrid routes require a bridge to be built adjacent to existing heritage bridge. The green and purple options may also require an active transport bridge in a similar location. So to achieve an active transport corridor, they are proposing a need to build two bridges.

We urge one bridge adjacent to the current bridge and incorporate both traffic and active transport. Thank you for including the section on visual amenity and noise. Transport's report notes a concern, read the yellow route, was overlooked by homes west of the river, noting at a distance of about 600 metres. The preferred route moves that 30 metres from multiple homes. Their report discusses maintaining long-range views from the existing bridge. The green diversion option destroys this and the long-range views west from any new bridge. In relation to noise and flood resilience, the diversion option doubles the noise footprint compared to duplicating alongside the current bridge. Transport for NSW will also not be able to mitigate the noise at Hannah Park and Norfolk Place approaches, as noise walls will be untenable due to the massive lateral loads and stresses of tonnes of floodwater and floodwater debris during a flood.

Using the existing Bells Line of Road alignment eliminates this issue. Transport for NSW documents show that a one in twenty flood resilience could not be built with the $250 million, but it now can and should be with the $500 million budget. I urge Council to include a question about who has politically interfered and directed Transport for NSW's preferred option. According to documents released under GIPA in December 2020, Transport for NSW advised City Warder that the preferred option was to duplicate the bridge next to the existing bridge and that, subject to additional funding, which was likely, the federal government was likely to advise Transport to undertake the new bypass alignment.

In a further email on 18 February 2021, Transport advised Sydney Water that the purple option was Transport for NSW's preferred option for providing flexibility in road design. Transport for NSW's emails then in April showed planning for the public announcement, ultimately announced as the green route. So the question is, who on what interests made the political direction to select this route? Reconsultation: I again urge Council to seek extensions of the consultation period. Transport for NSW has been impacted by COVID, but so has the community's ability to meet and address concerns. There is no urgency to close consultation, as they will commence phase one on the driftway, which is common to all routes, and they have time to address the community in person as COVID restrictions ease.

And the project manager has advised that there are no pressing internal deadlines. In summary, Council should seek a further extension to the deadline to make their submission and should take into account new facts which can be revealed after the release of documents under GIPA. Council should demand effective and extended consultation for their constituents and demand delivery of a truly flood resilient solution. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Morris. Happy to take questions. Yes. Just the first question is, just want to make sure that, have you seen the late supplementary business paper which makes some small changes to the submission?

No, I only had the copy of

The

Business paper from yesterday.

Apologise for that. Councillors have been working on some changes to the submission and that was sort of circulated over the last couple of days and put out publicly today. So I might just, and it's not much time, but if you wanted to have a look at that, if you did have any comments, I'm happy to let you speak again briefly on that basis, if you wanted to have a look at that now. Yes,

I will have to quickly have a look at the link

Yes, sorry about that. I just realised as you were speaking that it didn't sound like potentially you'd seen that. So I think it's important that you have a chance there. So we'll go on to the next speakers and you can feel free to say some more if you need to. Appreciate that. Next speaker is Matthew Parks.

Thank you, Mayor Conolly, and thank you other councillors and staff of the council for again listening to the residents in the Hawkesbury around this matter . Firstly, I just also want to thank Andrew Kearns for keeping us involved in this process and taking our, I guess, comments from our last meeting and putting them into the proposed response. So thank you for that. I guess following some further consultation we've had with our local community, including one today with the owners of — Durrumbos or Mountain View or whichever name we want to call the historical land property, state heritage property, you know, they haven't been consulted by Transport for New South Wales at all. They've received communication in the mail like the rest of the community.

It is a very significant property, but it's not just the property. In discussion, you know, that area around there is the last, from what we understand, it's the last rural colonial landscape that is left in Australia, and we're going to run a road through it. So I think in the response to Transport for New South Wales, that in the heritage consideration section, I think we need to, you know, it's more than the, it makes reference to Mountain View, but we need to make some amendments to that rural colonial setting, you know, that landscape. It's, you know, it's not going to be good when that's gone. The Hawkesbury, we want to return it to more of a village and keep our atmosphere, not a general suburb like much of Sydney.

So we want to keep our culture. So that's one of the items. One of the other items that I'd like to, in the response, in the draft response, is just in regards to, again, discussions about the safety, the road safety. So from my understanding, again, I've got to grab some facts as well. The major intersection between Inalls Lane and Tassell Road has had three fatalities on it. We're moving the problem from one area to another. So we need to make sure, it hasn't been highlighted that. I'm gathering some information about the facts. I've done some reporting on that stretch of road in the last five years between North Richmond and Richmond, and I can't find a fatality there. So there's some information.

We're still gathering around that road safety and concern that they're just moving the problem from one area, if there is a problem, to another. So we need to, the residents have already said, I know they're putting a roundabout in that area, but there are some views, and that's also one of the concerns in that part . The environmental impact, there's two parts in there. One, yes, there's the 100-year-old pecan trees. So the concern around that is they're looking at the ones that are just along the boundary, not the ones that are actually going to the university. You know, there will be at least half a dozen trees that are going to be cut down where the route is going. They can't see any other option than go through that at the moment.

And then the second point about climate change that's in the paper, I think we just need to maybe, you know, I guess one with the trees, the pecan trees, it's a heritage issue. You know, trees that are 100 years old are typically protected, so we need to just separate it. And the other part is about climate change. You know, the university is built around climate change research and agriculture. Yet we're putting on that property a road. It just doesn't make sense. So for me, it's about just highlighting that the trees that are where the route is going is that the trees that are getting cut down are part of climate change research. We shouldn't be putting a road on that property anyway when there are other

Options. So they're the main points that I'd like to just raise in that. We did have a call to action meeting of our local neighbourhood over the

Weekend to understand, you know, their concerns and issues. You know, Southee Road has residents that have been there since 1972. That are still there. They're not on the internet, but we're communicating with them in a COVID-safe manner, which is what we did on the weekend. So , yeah, they're all very discussed with this project. We know traffic improvement needs to happen, and an improvement to flood resilience needs to happen, as it says in the report. So, thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Parks. Accept to take questions from councillors, if there's any? Yes. Any questions, councillors? Not at this stage. Okay, thank you. Our next speaker is Mr. Adam Tolhurst.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Firstly, I would like to thank Council and Council representatives to allow myself to speak on behalf of the New South Wales Polo Association. My name is Adam Tolhurst, and I'm the Vice President of the NSWPA, which is recognised by New South Wales Office of Sport as a state sporting association. A submission has been prepared by the NSWPA to express its objection to Transport New South Wales preferred route, the green option. The economic contribution of the Hawkesbury equine industry is noted by Hawkesbury City Council's Local Strategic Planning Statement, Hawkesbury 2040. The report cites an annual injection of 159 million dollars to the local economy and 672 jobs. In total, there are currently 128 members across the polo clubs within the Hawkesbury area.

Previous studies, that the recreational horse sector outspends all other mainstream recreation activity and is a significant contributor to the local economy.

The proposed green route will directly affect the ability for three polo clubs to operate, thereby removing nearly one third of the activity and around 150 horses. This will seriously impede the capacity for the remaining clubs to operate, with the likely effect of other property owners eventually moving from the district and polo will shift elsewhere, resulting in an economic loss of over seven million from the direct polo activity. There are also priorities within the Hawkesbury City Council's Local Strategic Planning Statement 2040 that are consistent with the NSWPA's objection to the green option. These include planning priority one: ensure infrastructure aligns with current needs and future growth.

Action: Council will work with Transport for NSW to ensure that transport decisions enable and support liveability, employment and long-term community outcomes. Planning priority seven: promote and support all sectors of industry and business in Hawkesbury to meet current and future demands and trends. It should also be noted that the Hawkesbury 2040 report places a strong emphasis on the importance of tourism, the sector, and a desire to play a more active role in strengthening its key towns and tourism hubs. Council will take a strong lead and play an active role in promoting Hawkesbury's tourism. Council will collaborate with stakeholders to form a robust working partnership to support industry initiatives and grow its visitor economy.

Polo participation comprises of riders, grooms, families travelling large distances regularly during a season to compete. The influx of people to rural or regional centres does have a significant impact on both the economic and social wellbeing of the town . Polo in New South Wales consists of two main seasons, autumn and spring, and plays over a duration of nine months. Windsor Polo Club along Old Kurrajong Road has long hosted the major polo events in Australia, including the test match, which is held in April. The annual test match is the largest event in the polo calendar in 2020, and there were over 5,000 people in attendance. An event such as this contributes approximately $950,000 to the region's economy pre-COVID tournaments also attracted interstate and international players.

Concerns of the NSWPA of potential polo horses are ridden and led through along the road verges adjacent to the polo fields, including Old Kurrajong Road, Triangle Lane and Ridges Lane during tournaments. So there are significant horse movements between these clubs. The proposed green route will result in increased traffic to the area, particularly because of the construction of the on and off ramp along Old Kurrajong Road, increased traffic speed limit to the local road and the network due to the green route, increased horse truck traffic through Richmond. Given the above, New South Wales is seeking advice for the culpability of ensuring horse incidents and vehicles. In summary, New South Wales Polo Station is ambiguous in its opposition to the green route option as preferred by New South Wales Transport due to the following: the risk of the local economy of $7 million plus loss from the knock-on effect to the other sectors of the equine industry, removing polo and local tourism that has a huge area of opportunity and growth for our sport, and the risk of life and injury due to increased vehicle volume and speed.

Thank you.

Thank you. Happy to take questions from councillors if there's any. Yes , I am. Councillors, are there any questions at all? No. Okay, thank you. Just go back to Mr Morris. I did say I'd give you the opportunity to say anything else if you wanted to.

Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor. I appreciate the indulgence, and thank you for the document being sent through to me. I have scanned that. Just want to acknowledge the council staff and the improvement in that draft. A couple of issues still remain extant around the revitalisation, the visual impacts, the noise, and particularly the urge to ask the question around the interference between what is available in the GIPA documents about Transport for New South Wales communication to other government departments about what the preferred routes were, and then what has clearly been political direction to choose the green route outside of what Transport's previous recommendations have been in their own documentation. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Mr Morris. I just wondered, I missed what you said the second GIPA email was. I think it was the 18th of February. Could you just repeat that, please? Yep

Sorry, let me just bring my notes back up.

So the second

Email was on the 18th of February 2021 from Transport to New South Wales to Sydney Water, and it included the fact that the purple option was Transport for New South Wales' preferred option for providing flexibility in road design.

The purple option. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Did you want to move something, Dana? Okay, okay. So that's the conclusion of our speakers , councillors. So, somebody wish to move something?

Deputy Mayor.

Mr Mayor, I would like to move something, but I don't know if I've got the exact wording in front of me. But I will try and work it from your document, and I've only just seen the one that you sent through, but I assume it's very similar to the one that you had sent councillors. Is that correct?

Yes, that's right. I made a change based on your feedback, actually, and then there were some typographical changes. Main change being the addition of a paragraph about the staging of the project. Yes. Yep. Yes,

So the notion of my motion would be to reaffirm that, that we would support the stage one going forward. But I would, for the stage two, I would want that to literally go back, reverse right back to requiring outstanding information that we were asking for, rather than actually submitting anything in particular. So that would be to list a series of questions of information that we would request from Transport for New South Wales. And I've got no option with putting forward the feedback, the community feedback that was there. But I'm just wondering how to do this and—

I'm not sure if— sorry , I was just going to say, I think that's essentially the way that I've tried to draft it, is that we're noting that we support stage one and stage two, we've got all these questions based on this following submission. Yes.

Yes, well, we could put it in that form, but what I think would be probably more advantageous would be to put it in a list of, ‘ Could we please?’ We feel that we need to have the following information before we can actually submit with regard to any further. I guess that's the way I'm putting it. And I think that the submission contains it all, but I think that we might want to reformat it, but maybe that's not necessarily for here if we get the sentiment of what's happening. But I would like to increase— I would like to add another point to the information that we need, which would be around the inclusion of details and costings of the option going through North Richmond township but not Richmond, which I did send out in my feedback, but I don't think that's in the new one.

I think that's really important, and I believe that that costing probably exists because I think that's what Transport for New South Wales were working on.

Sorry, yeah.

Sorry, is that the yellow option, or is it a different option that they didn't publish or referring to?

Well, I think it was the original one from way, way back from 2012, perhaps when they did the Bells Line of Road study. But I don't know what they've done around it this time because the consultation wasn't complete. So I'm not entirely sure what form it exists in. But I think we need to see the costing of that and how that could give us. And I know I'm going into commentary now, so I'm trying to not do that. I'm trying to get a motion on the table for you, and I'll speak to it in a moment. But it would be to add that in. And also, in the context of what documentation to be looking in, I would like it to include, in the strategic context, that it also included consideration of the Western District Plan so that land use planning is also incorporated rather than just transport plans.

Okay. So, are you moving the recommendation in the late submission business paper with a couple of changes? Yes

With a couple of additions.

Yeah, one being the addition of the Western District Plan and the list of strategic state, regional, local transport plans to be considered. Yes. And the other one being an addition to the funding section on page three , it currently says, Given the significant increase in the project budget, a comparative of the expected cost of each route would give Council and other stakeholders better context to provide our feedback, including the cost of an option that bypasses Richmond but not North Richmond.

No, no, it doesn't bypass. It bypasses Richmond, not North Richmond. Hang on, is that what you said?

That's what I said, I think. Yeah. Sorry,

I'm coming from the other direction because I drive down that way, so it goes through North Richmond and bypasses Richmond. Thank you. Yes.

Was that noted down?

Well, I've got it noted down.

Yeah. I met someone who might be on the screen for us. Yeah.

Is there a seconder for that?

Seconded, Councillor. I think, just not to get ahead of the game here, I think we probably—there's an intention here to add the changes that Councillor Wheeler made that related to typographic matters and corrections to the heritage section.

Oh, yes.

Yes, yeah, I did draft

It

Yeah,

And potentially other things that have arisen from that as well.

Yeah.

If you want the motion, you can now speak to the motion. Yep.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and thank you to the speakers for bringing forward those concerns. It's quite evident that there's been a lot of concern around this entire process, and I take very much on board what Mr Morris has said about the, you know, the level of political manoeuvring in having that announcement come out. Having been on the Community Reference Group, Councillor Wheeler and I, we were on a course of consultation that was going forward, and that was due to come back, and it did not come back, an announcement came out. So I am interested in that, and I think that on that basis, we really have to return to a clean slate for the second stage. And I think we went through this in the last meeting, or we have in briefings, that there is adequate time for the stage one to be going on and still quite a bit of time for us to be still considering, or for Transport for New South Wales—obviously it's not our decision, unfortunately—for Transport for New South Wales to be considering the options and going back over those things.

As a council and as representatives of our residents and our people, we really need to have the outstanding information that we haven't been provided with yet, and we really need to understand the context of the increased budget that is now available and how that can translate into potential flood resilience in a more sustainable manner. And we do really need that clarity around what would happen in the event of the Grose River Bridge not being built. That's something that's fundamental to the modelling, as we know, and we really need that answer to us before we can be doing a firm submission on it. I heard what Mr Morris said about the town centre revitalisation. I think it's imperative that we have the master planning for North Richmond prior to us doing a submission as well.

I think we need to understand what the future for that area is, just as we need to understand with the future of land use and the demands going into the future. This is a major piece of infrastructure, and it's a piece of infrastructure that we have waited a long time for, that we deserve to have because we all pay our taxes and we deserve to have, you know, a bridge, and it's an exit out of Sydney. So it's a really important piece of infrastructure.

I think that the community has come up with so many questions around the whole process and the whole unfolding of how this has occurred. And when we see the level of engagement that our community has, it really amplifies the fact that the consultation wasn't done in a way that we could all get the information from our community to inform our submissions and so on, and for Transport for New South Wales to have undertaken that proper level of consultation before they came out with a preferred route, which was what their commitment was in the first place, as they were quite mindful after the Windsor Bridge debacle , I guess you could call it, but after that they were quite mindful of going through a process where there was adequate community consultation.

And unfortunately we've seen again that we have had some sort of change in the scheduling of the consultation, and it's gone back to a situation that we're faced with now. The Mayor did put out his revised submission , which some of us commented on and added a couple of points into, and I think that it's quite good. I think it covers the outstanding information that we need to consider so that we can better prepare a decision. But as Mr Morris alluded to, there's no real urgency when there is the ability for the first stage of the project to proceed, and that's a very important part of it. And as it stated, that is part of each of the proposed routes anyway, so it would be going ahead. So I think that's all I'll probably say for now.

I just did think it was really important to get that original costing of the route that would go straight through North Richmond, where it would be widened. Obviously that would impact people too, but we need to know what that scenario is before we can be making a well-informed decision on that. So I'll leave it there for now. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Just if you want to have a look at that motion on the board and make sure that's correct and let us know if it isn't . Councillor Calvert.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I've been trying to find a map to show me where the yellow route was supposed to go, and I haven't been able to find anything which clarifies that. And I'm wondering, my memory of that yellow route and the other one that came up before that is that both of those sent traffic into Richmond, into the Bosworth Street intersection. And I'm wondering, was the driftway part of those? Those two plans, do any of the staff, can they tell me whether the driftway was included in the yellow route?

Refer that to Manager Strategic Planning, I imagine.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So the driftway is common to all the proposed corridor options within the preferred options report. So

It's common to the yellow route as well?

Correct, yep.

Yep . I find, well, my understanding of the yellow route is that the road is duplicated all the way to Bosworth Street. Is that not the case?

Because as I said, I can't find a copy of it anywhere. Refer

That to the manager.

So attachment one to the report is the actual preferred option report. On page seven of that document outlines all the various route options that are proposed. So the yellow option essentially uses the driftway

And then comes in along Carceray—sorry, not Carceray Road—Yarramundi Lane, and then at the intersection of Kurrajong Road , then turns left onto the existing

Bells Line of Road and bridge corridor route.

Okay, I'll have another look at that. I'm just— what I'm concerned about is that we are now talking about going back to the beginning and looking at all the routes, and not all those routes rely on the driftway as part of their... Part of their route, and I'm just wondering whether we should be tying ourselves to the driftway in the resolution, because I see the driftway as a separate project to this one. I know the driftway needs repair, and I know it can provide a good link between Richmond and the roundabout at South Windsor, but I don't necessarily see it as part of a project to have a bridge across the river at North Richmond. And I'm just concerned about having that point there, that it ties us into something that reduces our flexibility.

Having said that, I'm still going to support the resolution as it's put forward, because I think what we're saying is go back to the beginning and have another look at this project. And what I think from looking at the traffic analysis is that most of the discussion has been about the morning traffic. Very little of the discussion has been about the afternoon traffic. And if you analyse the afternoon traffic that comes through Richmond, it is banked up right back past the railway station quite often, especially on Friday afternoons. But with any of these routes that we have here, they will all still have a two-lane road going from Richmond down to North Richmond, so traffic is still going to bank up down there.

And when it gets down to North Richmond near what's going to be the new bridge, there's going to be an intersection there where the traffic will queue up as well. And I don't see that the green route. Or the yellow route is going to change traffic through Richmond. And in the morning, at the moment, traffic goes up to Bosworth Street, a lot of it turns right and then goes up Lennox Street. And the traffic that needs to go to Windsor or Richmond goes straight ahead. And the yellow route is, and the green route are not going to stop that. People who want to go to Richmond and Windsor are still going to go straight ahead at that set of lights. So your traffic through Windsor, through Richmond, for the township will probably end up being roughly the same, because you're diverting traffic that's going further afield to South Windsor, not necessarily to Windsor itself.

So I think there's a lot of those kind of questions about traffic movement that need to be answered. And of course, when this project came up, I think everyone, especially councillors, wanted to see two things happen. We wanted to see a traffic solution for North Richmond, and we wanted to see a better flood-free access for North Richmond. And I don't believe the routes that we've seen here do both of those things. In fact, in most cases, they do neither of those things. The green route puts a new intersection in just on the Richmond side of the bridge. So if you're coming down the hill from Kurrajong area, you now have to negotiate an intersection on Terrace Road, and then another intersection across on the other side of the bridge.

So at the moment, you've got one intersection to go through. The green route will give you two. Similarly, if you're coming down Grose Vale Road and you're turning right there at the lights at North Richmond, you've got that intersection at the moment. Now you're going to have another intersection. On the other side of the bridge, and it's still going to be just the one lane going across. So I don't see how that intersection in particular is going to help traffic. And in the afternoon, it's the other way around. Traffic is going to be coming in from Yarramundi Lane and traffic coming down from Richmond is going to have to bank up as it merges or goes through the lights. So that intersection alone is going to hold all the traffic going in both directions, morning and afternoon.

So I can't see how that is going to improve traffic flow. Plus that intersection will go underwater when it gets a bit wet. So I'm glad we're sending this back. I'm glad we're saying our position is we want to start again and have another look at this. And I don't think there's any hurry because it'd be better, I mean, this bridge, if it ever gets built, hopefully will last at least 100 years. And so we really need to do this properly. We don't want to rush into something and it's just going to be half-baked. And this

Project, or these routes at the moment, don't answer those basic questions. So yes, I'd like to see this go back and be thought out again. So therefore, I support the resolution. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Calvert . I'll just speak briefly to the motion. I'm going to be supporting the motion that's in front of us. Made some key changes to the resolution—sorry, to the submission that was in the business paper to emphasise a couple of things that I think we need to emphasise. The first one, and to my mind the most important thing here, is to point out to Transport for NSW that flood resilience has to be a key objective of this project. Looking at the preferred options report, the key objective is clearly best traffic outcome, which is, you know, from their point of view, which is obviously a huge part of this project and we have to fix the traffic. But we also need them to be considering flood resilience.

It's very— and this is the second part of the thing that I changed. I wanted to be really a bit more positive and a more engaging way to engage with them. We understand that a half a billion dollar investment in this kind of infrastructure project is a huge deal. We very much want this bridge to happen and we want it to happen as fast as we can. But as Councillor Calvert just said, in 50 to 100 years, nobody's going to care if it took an extra two months to get the design exactly right. We're not going to get this chance again, and so we have to make sure that this money gets spent properly and we get a good outcome . I don't want to be, and I think this submission doesn't, I don't want to be dictating to Transport for NSW as well as what the solution is.

We want to be saying to them, if you've got half a billion dollars and you're still not going to fix our flood problem, we're still not going to have access in a significant, even a moderate flood event, that's potentially not the best outcome. We want you to go back and look at what the best outcome could be. We want to remain, I think we want to remain route agnostic at this point of view. We just want to tell them what our objectives are. But similar to what Councillor Calvert and the Deputy Mayor said, I'd be particularly interested in the government looking at if they went the yellow option, or an option similar to the yellow option that bypassed Richmond but not North Richmond, is that significantly cheaper, as it seemed to have been indicated in the earlier documents?

And if so, could the rest of the budget we spent making it significantly higher, so we get a much better flood resilience outcome as well? That's something I'd really like to see, and at the moment we just don't have the information to be able to tell any of that because we don't have the costings. We've only got answers to questions verbally in those briefing sessions, but we really need to see what does that option look like. Acknowledging that, you know, based on preferred option report, it wouldn't give us as good a traffic outcome . It would give us still a traffic time saving, but nowhere near as good as the green route. But, you know, potentially our community might wear that if we get a better overall outcome and we're trying to balance competing objectives.

So I very much want to go through this process in a way that we want to collaborate with Transport for NSW. We want to work with them to get the best outcome. What we're saying here is we support the driftway. It's an obvious, obviously 40% of the traffic, or close to 40%, is going that way anyway. It makes perfect sense. That's the only way you're going to bypass Richmond is to upgrade that route. We're going to do that with any of the options, so let's get that underway. Let's confirm we support that and that needs to happen. If that is stage one, then there's really no problem with stage two, taking our time to work out stage two and get it right . And these are all the questions we have as we've listed out.

We want this information so we can work with Transport for New South Wales on getting the design of stage two right. So I think this is a sensible way forward. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just for Councillor Calvert's benefit, there's a map that details all the routes in case people playing from home want to look at them on page seven of attachment two to this item, and you can see the yellow route there, and you can see the use of the driftway by the routes as well. A few things, from the speakers and the submission that Council's got, I think we can actually include a couple of additional things that have come up in this evening's discussion quite easily by making some minor additions to the submission. In the changes that I made to the heritage considerations, I've included more information about Dight's Farm based on the state heritage listing of the property and made reference to its exceptionally high significance at the fact that it's considered to be a homestead complex and its setting overlooking the lowland farms, and they're all noted in the listings.

It's, I think, something that we tried hard to emphasise to Transport for New South Wales during the consultation process, that these buildings are just significant because of the building themselves or even the curtilage that closely surrounds the building. They're important because of their place as part of the vision for agriculture on the floodplain, so that these homestead complex, these farm dwellings and their outbuildings exist above the flood level, and the agricultural land that they serve sits below. The idea is that the building is high and dry and you can retreat with your family, some of your stock, and the things that you need to recover, including your machinery, to high ground while, when your farm is flooded.

It's actually the genius of Macquarie's town planning for the four Macquarie towns. So the curtilage of the building is significant, but the context of the building and its view over the agricultural land that belonged to that building is also incredibly important. And Mr Parks is right in that this is one of the very few remaining examples of these buildings that can still achieve that. We could probably insert a simple sentence to what I've put in already about further detailing the importance of its views and the need to retain them. That would be an easy fix. I think we could also include an additional section to answer Mr Morris's concerns about the active transport links. We could easily add an additional sentence to the section that we've got on town centre revitalisation and active transport links about council's concerns about the safety of active transport links given the volume of traffic that will still be continuing to North Richmond via Bells Line of Road, and I think that relates to Councillor Calvert's point about the traffic that will still continue to use that road.

And Transport for New South Wales have been clear in their traffic modelling that there will still be significant amounts of traffic travelling. Between North Richmond and Richmond on Bells Line of Road , we probably need to, in the section on socio-economic impacts, we've made reference, and this is one of the mayor's additions, I think we've made, or corrections, we've made specific reference to people living in North Richmond on Southee Road and the lowlands. I think we probably should include specific mention of the Polo community, or the, given what we understand about their

Impact on tourism and the local economy.

I am concerned that we still haven't made enough reference to the impact on offsite place and with the use of that green route, and I think that we probably should include further information about that . I think it's clear that there isn't a great deal of urgency, that there is no intention to proceed with Stage 2 for some time yet, and I think that— Regardless of how we feel about the driftway linking into this project, the

Works to the driftway are overdue to begin with. Given the traffic and the— sorry, the accidents that have been noted by Transport for New South Wales, it's them who've put the driftway in their sights for improvement and safety works. So I don't have— even if we never build the rest of this road, I have absolutely no problems with Transport for New South Wales spending their money on upgrading the driftway. It's long overdue. So I don't think we should be too concerned about that. We could insert an additional paragraph about the impacts on Western Sydney University. It would be— I don't know if we've been in discussions with Western Sydney University and whether they feel that they're being adequately consulted with.

I do have— and this is obviously a matter internal to Western Sydney University— whether their researchers feel that they're being heard about the impacts on that project, or whether it's being handled by staff members from a different department. That does concern me. It's often difficult for researchers to get the attention that they deserve. I did also include, I should mention, a sentence in the corrections that, or the additions that I made, that the community consultation group, including the Deputy Mayor and myself, made it extremely clear at the beginning of the consultation process that flood resilience was a crucial part of this project. There was unanimous support for that amongst all the community groups gathered for the community consultation, and to see that we've ended up at a one in five is really disappointing.

So I'm glad that we've gone hard on that in the submission, but I think we could just make a couple of quick changes. I'm happy to make them after this meeting and circulate them if the councillors are happy with it. I don't think any of them are controversial at all.

I'd be quite happy with that as a way forward. I'm just going to get some advice from the general manager on how we do that, if possible.

Through you, Mr Mayor, it's possible that we could frame a resolution that simply talked about that, where we say Council endorses the future amended draft submission in principle, subject, and then as a sub-point to that perhaps it reads something like , subject to final amendment and circulation by councillors prior to issue, or something of that nature, perhaps?

Yep. Okay, well we might continue debate whilst the staff can try and draft something along those lines for us. Yep. Just lost all the hands. I think Councillor Kotlash had her hand up.

Yeah thank you, Mr Mayor. Look, I'm happy to go with that because I think that— I don't think we've made this submission strong enough. In the third paragraph of the letter to Transport for New South Wales, just at the, I think the last sentence, it says, We have a number of concerns and questions with Stage 2 as outlined in this submission and believe that there is sufficient time for this conversation to continue with the community whilst work on Stage 1 progresses. I'd like to say that I guess something that essentially says that we actually need some other options because, as the Deputy Mayor has pointed out in her 2.B, to include the cost of the option of a route that bypasses Richmond but not North Richmond, that's another option, and I don't think that we necessarily, at this stage, should just be asking for the cost of that.

I think we should be asking for other options that actually address the two main points that— Well, I think it has to actually address all of our points, but the two main ones are flood resilience and the traffic problems. The other things, so, you know, well, the environment and the heritage and the safety aspects are all important as well. So I'd like to have a sentence, and we can work on this in the coming days, that stresses that we're not happy with that, and we'd like them to not start again, because there's been a lot of work done, but just start answering those questions that we as councillors have, that the community has, you know, the Polo associations , et cetera, et cetera. So there's so much more to do.

So I'd go in a bit stronger, but I appreciate we have to work with Transport for New South Wales, and I know we're all happy to do that to get the best outcome. There's a lot of money in this project, and we really should be getting something quite wonderful for the community out of it. So I'd be happy to have that process, and I won't talk about the other points because we can do that. But essentially, I think we need to go in harder.

Just on the procedure, I guess the intention there is that we would be endorsing it in principle and not changing anything of significance. Whereas I think to change that to, ‘We don't support the green option,’ that's probably a more significant change. We might want to resolve on tonight, rather than just leave it to be worked on behind the scenes. I don't think that's probably quite right. I was, when I drafted this, specifically trying to avoid that stance of, ‘We don't want the green option.’ I didn't want to be telling them which option is right and wrong. I want to go back to them and say, ‘These are all the issues and concerns that need to be addressed before any option can be looked at, can be agreed to.’

Yeah, I get that and I agree with you on that one.

But the questions around the green option need to be answered and understood and discussed so that we know what that green option is actually about. So that might mean, well, that might mean getting more information about the other options, and if that information that hasn't been given might lead to some changes. I don't know. It was the purple route first and now it's the green route, might be the yellow route at the end of this conversation. Who knows? But I

Wouldn't, yeah. Anyway, I'll leave it at that, and we can, I think we're all on the same page, and I don't think it's controversial at this stage. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Look, I'm pleased that we appear to be proceeding in a reasonably bipartisan fashion here, and I think it's important to do that on an issue of this importance and observe that there are many more people tuned into our webcast at this exact moment than we would normally ever see in the gallery, and that's just an indication of the interest and concern that's held in the broader community. And it's important for us to be a bit nuanced about this. And what I want to offer by way of a contribution is to say that this isn't an either/or proposition. I want to emphasise that we can accept some propositions and then, as you've said, Mr Mayor, state that we have many questions that need to be adequately addressed before we can move forward.

So, for what it's worth, I mean, you know, I am persuaded through the briefings that we have received that the green route is objectively superior in many ways. It certainly saves the most travel time. It has the fewest number of major constraints. It has a superior cost-benefit ratio than the purple route, for example. It certainly, in terms of the modelling, will draw more traffic away from the congested current route. And I know this point is arguable, will have a lesser impact on the landscape, both ecologically and in terms of heritage and in terms of Aboriginal heritage , than the purple route. But I concede that that's currently a point of contention. But the thing is, I also think that you can concede the argument on those points and at the same time state that Council has every right to be very pointed and quite assertive in its submission on behalf of our community for the following reasons.

I agree that there are significant unanswered questions relating to the emphasis that's been placed on flood resilience. All you need to do is see the route that's been favoured and then where the floodwaters encroach, and you can see that it doesn't make sense from that perspective unless there's a commitment to significantly elevate that route. And considering that we have an elevated flood evacuation route in the form of the Jim Anderson Bridge, and given the kind of money that's being offered, I can't imagine why we can't get a similar outcome. I don't know why we can't get an outcome where that spaghetti junction of Kurrajong Road, Old Kurrajong Road and Yarramundi Lane can't be elevated or a flyover, not only to fix the congestion issues that will occur there in the future, but also to improve the flood resilience.

I think that there are significant unanswered questions about the impact of people on Southee Road and Inalls Lane. I think there are unanswered questions relating to the impact of the climate change research facility, but I'll correct Councillor, I can't remember which colleague it was that made this point, that we need to be concerned about whether they were adequately consulted. Our job is to put in a submission about the issues that are important to us. Western Sydney University are perfectly free to make their own submission about any concerns that they have. This is why it is called a consultation process . We don't need to take that on on their behalf. I have no problem with us being more or less route agnostic.

I have no problem with leaving the yellow route or a hybrid route on the table at this point. And most critically, I think that we are quite correct in asking the question whether the entire consideration is completely upended if ultimately the Grose River Bridge is further delayed or potentially cancelled. Not that I would wish that outcome, but if the modelling and the viability of a particular route is based solely on the expectation that the Grose River Bridge will be completed and within a particular time frame, sadly we have to report to them that we're not sure that that's what's going to occur, and that that might alter the consideration. Significantly . So for that reason, I'm pleased at the way we've done this in a collaborative spirit, and I'm happy to endorse what's before us at the moment.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor Tree.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think that it's important that we put forward a case suggesting that we're not entirely happy with the current proposal. I think Southee Road is actually a pretty awful place for that particular road to go, and obviously I think they have a lot of work to do regarding that. I'm a little bit concerned about some of the councillors, or particularly Councillor Zamprogno, just mentioning that if the Grose River bridge is not going to go ahead because I just feel as though that that is not the sort of language that we need to use for the community, because it gives the impression that we know something that other people don't, and that perhaps there is something happening where it's not going to happen.

And I just find that quite puzzling, considering you've got three people, you know, three signatories on the VPA, each person saying that they want it to happen. And I note that there were a number of people on book face—sorry, Facebook—where they've latched onto that sort of language. So I don't find it useful that Council would say that if that bridge doesn't go ahead, there's no earthly reason why it shouldn't, considering it's part of the VPA, and that's a legally binding document and contract. So I find that a little bit frustrating. In relation to, it's really nice to hear Councillor Wheeler being supportive of Polo. I think that's a really good and new thing, so well done. I think it's interesting that— I'm going to leave it there.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. No further speakers. We'll go right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. That seems like we've come up with a solution to move forward with getting the submission done. I think it is really important that we do acknowledge that there has been, you know, some flaws in how this has come about, and I think that we really have to ensure that all avenues are exhausted as were originally proposed. We can't have this based around an election cycle or around political announcements. This has to be based on what is best after all the consultations are done, after all the questions are answered. We really need the answers to these questions before we can make an informed decision. And this has been a very long process, and it was going along very well, but it all seems to have just fallen in at the end, which is a real shame.

We also have no EIS done around this yet, so we can't be discussing, you know, about the impacts of it until we see that. I think essentially the uncertainty that goes with these particular sorts of processes are very difficult on our community, and that's why we have to be upfront and we have to advocate and pass on the information and ensure that all of the information is given to us so that we can express what is important to our residents, what's important to our local economy, what's important in preserving our heritage, what is important in preserving our amenity that our community finds so valuable, and the characteristics of the Hawkesbury that we want to preserve, while at the same time having a balance to move forward with the infrastructure that we also need.

So I think that gathering in, pooling our thoughts and ideas to get a submission that asks the questions that are still outstanding will be a really, really positive move forward, and I think— I think that everybody is trying to work to ensure things like active transport are addressed. Councillor Wheeler has raised a number of heritage concerns, which of course should be included, heritage points. And I'd just like to address Councillor Zamprogno. I think he has a short memory because I think every time there's been a vote around a bridge at the council chamber, it's been totally overflowing. So I think that, I don't know how many people are watching, but I think even if we were in the chamber, we would have a lot of the community coming along to speak and witness what the council is thinking, because this is a really, really big piece of infrastructure and a really important decision to be made.

And we've got to ensure it's done thoroughly. We've got to do it justice in our role as representatives of our people, and that's what I think we should be going forward and doing. And we also need to ensure that our community understands our role in this. What is the role of the council? We're not the decision maker. We are a participant, we're a stakeholder in it, and we'll be bringing forward a submission based on a variety of factors. And I think that the mayor has put forward the submission that we can now make these minor adjustments for, that we're voting to adopt in principle. And then hopefully, and I would think Transport for NSW have got the gist of what everyone's thinking, hopefully it will be back to the drawing board to provide the answers to those outstanding questions and looking back over the community feedback and what things need to be preserved and what adjustments may need to be made.

Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Ross, I know you've got your hand up. We've had right of reply, so if it's a point of order or otherwise we'll proceed to a vote.

I believe it's procedural, Madam.

Okay.

The amendments that were spoken of by Councillor Wheeler, and upon which the General Manager commented,

I do not believe it is appropriate in a public meeting about a public document which we are about to submit, that the community is not aware tonight, in the course of this public meeting, of knowing what those alterations are and be visible and present and understood by the community before a vote is taken. I take exception to this procedure, sir. I think it is remiss.

Thanks, Councillor. I definitely take your point, and in considering how to deal with this this afternoon, I guess the only other way we could do that is if we delayed the vote, essentially, if we tabled this and then came back again, and given that submissions close, we just don't have that opportunity. Certainly take your point. I guess the other alternative was to sit here and put them up on the screen one at a time as we flip through several pages, knowing that the community still wouldn't be able to speak to them or give any feedback given at that point in the meeting. Unfortunately, this is probably the best way we can do it. There seems to be broad support amongst the councillors to continue that way, we'll find out in a moment.

I guess theoretically we could have delegated authority instead, but probably going to have the exact same effect. So I take your point, but we'll proceed on this basis. So I'll put the motion. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Favour are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Tree, Councillor Cotlach. Against the motion, Councillor Ross, Councillors Reynolds, Richards and Rasmussen were absent for the vote. Also, Councillor Reynolds isn't here, so we declare it carried.

And if somebody wants to let Councillor Richards and Rasmussen back in, please. Also, Councillors, we need to go back and need someone to move the minutes from the last meeting.

Deputy Mayor, seconded Councillor Zamprogno. All those in favour? Declare that carried.

And then the items on block. So we have two items, 173 and 174, moved Councillor Zamprogno, seconded Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour, declare that carried.

And our next item subject for discussion is Item 170. Deputy Mayor, move the recommendation.

I'll move the recommendation, Mr Mayor.

Seconder for that? Seconded, Councillor Zamprogno. Any discussion?

Yes, Mr Mayor, just briefly. On page 13 of the public hearing report regarding the land at Fernadell Drive , the 4,299 square metre portion and around its potential sale, I've just got a question around that. In the report it states that the proceeds are to be reinvested into the multi-function community recreation and sporting facility on the 9.5 hectare portion of the site. I'm just wondering what mechanism Council has considered to guarantee that this will be the case with any future revenue from the sale of that land.

Over to the Chief Financial Officer, is that the right? Or Director of Infrastructure Services, or who would like it?

General Manager? Absolutely

I can probably make a comment there that when, basically in the past experience, the requirement where funds come from a development contribution and land is sold as a result, then those funds are put back into that particular plan. So in this case here, that would be the legislation would effectively govern the control of those funds if they were realised through a sale.

Okay, so we wouldn't have a— it's governed by legislation then. So because it's really imperative that those funds would go for that purpose, given that that land was originally designated to be part of that, and then if it's sold off to maintain it, it would be most unfortunate if they were to be used for some other purpose other than that. But you're saying there's a requisite regulatory mechanism around that.

That's true, Mr Mayor, that would be correct. You would need to amend the plan effectively to do otherwise, so that would be the only way that you could use it for the purpose for which it was originally dedicated or acquired.

Okay. Thank you. Aside from that, I think that that's, you know, that was interesting reading of the public hearing and the report and so on. But I think that that, you know, I have no issue with those changes, amendments. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks. Just a question, Mr Mayor, regarding in the point 2.5 in the recommendation to amend the height of the buildings so that there are no restrictions on height of the buildings. I noticed that that was one of the concerns raised in the public consultation. Could we have some information about why we are moving to remove the height restrictions? Refer

That to the Manager, Strategic Planning.

Mr Mayor, so that's essentially to be consistent with all RE1 zoned land within the Hawkesbury LEP . So all RE1 zoned land has no building height restriction.

Is there, given that the land surrounding that all has, is largely residential and does have height restrictions, and given that we have already determined what we plan to do with this site, is the removal of the height restriction on this site likely to incur

Are the concerns of the community,

Are we likely to end up with a ten-storey building on that site? Refer

That to the

Manager.

Obviously, there's a process going underway in terms of the plan and management for the actual overall development of that RE1 zoned land. We're not anticipating that we'd see a building that, you know, was of that height, but... That's certainly at this stage, yeah.

So could we include then a building height restriction in the plan of management, to satisfy that concern from the community?

I'd probably have to take that on notice in terms of the plan of management. I'm not familiar with, you know, plans of management and what they're able to and not able to do.

So I'm just, yeah, in

Terms of the LEP is what I'm covering, but yeah, certainly take that on notice, yeah.

Yeah, I could probably assist there, Councillors. The plan of management can certainly provide guidance around the height of buildings. I'd be cautious about implementing any restrictions in the LEP , certainly on the run this evening, because we don't want to give rise to unintended consequences around heights of things like flagpoles, goalposts, those types of things that we may not wish to restrict necessarily the height of buildings to.

Thanks, that's helpful. I think the community's concerns about, I think this is one of those unknowns that worry communities when we both reclassify and rezone so that what they thought that they had in close proximity to their properties isn't what they might necessarily end up with. And I think people are rightly concerned that what they thought they were getting isn't the same as what they end up with. And I think when you see something written as boldly as no restriction on the height of buildings, that rings alarm bells for the community. It's not council's intention to build anything more than this community facility on the site. It will be a sporting facility. It's unlikely that we will be building something out of scale with the surrounding township.

But I think written as boldly as it is in the recommendation, it has set some of the community, it's made them uneasy. And I think if we can reassure them through a plan of management that— That they don't have, that they should, that they don't need to be concerned about this, then I think that would be helpful. Otherwise, I think this is reasonably straightforward. It's fairly straightforward council business in order to manage this site and get a better outcome for the community.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Right of reply, Deputy Mayor

Just briefly, thanks, Mr Mayor. I think that, yes, that's a good outcome. I might follow up and sort of confirm that around the guarantee of those funds being spent only for that purpose at some point. But thank you. That's all for now. Thanks.

Okay , so put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lanesbury, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Ross, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Kotlash. Declare it carried.

Next item is 171, the Local Government New South Wales conference. Councillor Wheeler.

I'll move the recommendation in the business paper, Mr Mayor.

Seconded, Deputy Mayor.

Any discussion?

Not required, so then we vote on the motion and then we can go back and nominate the councillors. Is that correct? Yep. Okay, so put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Ross, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Kotlash. Declare it carried.

Now, do we want these five people to be the same people for all categories, councillors, or do we want to be doing this three times?

I suppose it depends how many people want to go.

Yeah. Perhaps we should proceed on the basis that they are the same until we find some dissent.

Yeah. I'll need someone to move who the five should be, but it'd be great if someone wanted to move those five people are all the same. Does people just want to sort of express their interest? I'd like to be included.

Councillor Wheeler, Deputy Mayor Ross and Zamprogno want to be included. That is five. If there was no other interest, someone could just move that for me. Councillor Richards would move that those five are just named would be the five nominated for each as the delegates for the board elections and the conference, and the annual conference. Moved. Councillor Richards, seconded Councillor Rasmussen. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Carver, Councillor Ross, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Kotlash. Declared carried.

Much easier than was potentially the case. And that takes us to item 175, the minutes of the Partnership and Innovations Committee. Somebody want to move that or something? Councillor believes, you've got your hand up. I'm not sure if that's intentional . No,

Sorry.

We want to move the recommendation there.

Anything else? Moved

Councillor Richards. Seconder for that, Councillor Zamprogno. Any discussion?

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I had a couple of questions arising out of that, and the first one was the other day we got some information about the public consultation on the peri-urban telecommunications. I'm just wondering if any of the councillors on that committee attended that session.

Which session was that?

The general manager sent us information on the public consultation on peri-urban telecommunications discussion, a government information session, which I think after reading the minutes of this, I thought the committee members or someone from the committee would have attended that, as it was raised in—our Councillor Richards did.

I registered to attend and unfortunately had a massive homeschooling drama with my son this morning, and I logged in for about 60 seconds and had to remove myself or I was having chaos at home.

Yeah, I just think it was something that was raised, and it was just fortuitous, I suppose, that there is discussion ongoing around that. And I think that given the fact that you're looking into that sort of thing, it would be very pertinent to try and hear what else is happening, given that from what I read in the minutes was that those areas are excluded in the mobile black spot sort of program as it goes. So I wasn't quite up on that, but I saw that that was on and I just thought to ask if anybody had been able to hear what—obviously they've got some initiative going forward that they're going to be looked at. The other thing, there was another question there. Oh, the other thing was in the letter that was given by Susan Templeman, I noticed that in that she had a couple of requests asking if council responded to the invitation from the minister regarding leveraging co-investment for high-speed NBN services.

And I didn't see the things that were in her submission actually raised within the committee meeting or in the minutes. So perhaps that could be provided because I think that's a really— obviously council has been contacted by the minister in regard to this, or the government department. And so when there's an opportunity for us to, you know, respond, and obviously issues around NBN, we know everybody has them and so on. I think that that would be really good if there was a couple of times in that that she had mentioned contacting council and providing information from the government, that I think that we should, you know. I think the outcome is a little disappointing that it is just a letter to the minister.

I think there was a lot more in the content of those things that could have been some further following up. So, I guess it's nothing new to anyone that there's so many issues with telecommunications, but I'm not sure on the conclusion of that what the residents would be expecting to happen from the council, because I can't see what we can do when, after reading what Susan Templeman provided, what she had tried to do at a federal level, there had not been necessarily a lot of this coming forward. So I just, I really was interested in the peri-urban consultation, however, because I think that is possibly an area not just around telecommunications, but about other things that we face, where there's a real difference when we have that.

That mix of being sort of semi-rural and rural, and also having urban areas that in some instances we’re classed as one or the other. And I think it’s really important that we look for any opportunities where we can input to ensure that all our residents are getting access to, you know, being able to apply for things and everything, and not excluded on the basis that they may live in a different type of sort of area than, you know, what is considered normal for here. Thank you.

Thank you. I’ll just ask that question as the General Manager. Did anybody attend that meeting today, General Manager

I’d have to take that one on notice, Mr Mayor. I’m sorry.

Director,

Infrastructure Services . Through you. So yes, yes, I did attend the webinar today on that. It was actually two sessions, there’s another one on Thursday. I can give you a bit of a brief update on the submission or the discussion that transpired . So there was certainly—it’s basically an Australia-wide inquiry that’s being undertaken, and there’s submissions available for council to make until, or the public until the 30th of September. The key issues that we raised today were obviously the resilience in terms of the Telco infrastructure right across the district, and that was echoed also by other communities, particularly the hills and some other local government areas . Black spots, as I said, resilience black spots, and the coverage and basically the technology that can be applied to various areas, particularly given our geography and vast size.

So those were the key issues. I guess the head of the inquiry indicated that the resilience was one of the key things that they felt was of key importance to their inquiry. So they’ll be looking at making the— The deliberations throughout the remainder of this calendar year, and that's their time frame.

Thank you . And I don't know if this one has to be taken on notice, but I just would be good to just get an answer as to whether we did engage with the Minister in regards to the leveraging of the co-investment, or the Part 5, Round 5A of the federal government's Black Spots Program. I don't know if anyone has the answer to that, or if we need to take that on notice

Through you, Mr Mayor, we basically sought advice from them on that program. I'm not sure that we had any advice back as to how that might affect the Hawkesbury. We certainly did write to them and indicate our interest in understanding more of how that process might work and whether it was applicable to the Hawkesbury, or seek advice as to whether we've had any response on that.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler

Thanks. Given that the submissions are open for that inquiry until the end of September, would it be possible for us to put up a post on Council's Facebook page alerting people to the existence of that inquiry and the potential to put submissions in? It would be really good if some of the community groups who have connected information about this, or who are really well informed about the limitations of this, the McDonald Valley Association could perhaps be contacted and given additional information about it. But it's something that affects the whole LGA, not just remote areas, and you can see that from the submissions. You know, people in Bligh Park, for example. You know, you don't have to—someone else in Werrington Forest.

And with COVID, with everyone at home, with people homeschooling, with people trying to work from home, it's become—we've really reached a pinch point, I think. But— So we do, I think we do have lots of people who probably have some time, but certainly sufficient angst to be willing to put in submissions to that inquiry, and we should let the community know that that's available to them.

Yeah, we can do that . Any further discussion? If not, we'll go right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

Not necessary, thanks, Mr Mayor

All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Pogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Ross, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Kottlash, Councillor Rasmusson, Councillor Garrow. Councillor Reynolds is absent for the vote. Declare it carried.

And then the final item is 176, just as any questions on questions.

There being no questions on those responses, then that is our final item of business. So we'll declare the meeting closed at 8.05. Thanks, everybody.