No Retrospective Approval This Time
(June 2003)
Last year the Gordon Falls Bushcare Group, having spent many hours weeding
and revegetating Gordon Falls Reserve, received a certificate of appreciation
from Blue Mountains City Council for 10 years service to the community.
Regeneration work on creek-lines in the Reserve has been funded through
the Urban Runoff Control Program. Members who remember the mass of weeds
and land degradation in the reserve and on the approaches to the lovely
old bushwalk through Lyrebird Dell and the Pool of Siloam have commented
on the improvement. But is all this work to be in vain?
Four years ago, on land adjacent to the reserve and without Council approval,
the steep, fern-covered sides of Gordon Falls Creek were bulldozed and
significant areas of important creek-line vegetation were destroyed. This
vegetation, immediately upslope of the National Park, had acted as a barrier
to water and sediment flows for a creek which runs through Lyrebird Dell
and the Pool of Siloam. The removal of large pine trees on the property
had been approved, but the bulldozing of the creek-line had not.
Since the removal of the pines and the excavation of the creek banks,
pine logs, needles and sediment were noticed in the creek as far down
as the Pool of Siloam. Creek banks have collapsed, associated vegetation
has been lost, and sediment deposits downstream have dramatically increased.
A Land Use Application for landscaping work on the property has been lodged
and will soon be considered by Council. The Applicant claims the development
will have a 'positive impact' on the natural environment by stabilising
disturbed land-but the land wasn't disturbed until it was unlawfully bulldozed
by the applicant! The application is of serious concern and should be
refused for a number of reasons.
The proposed restoration of the riparian vegetation does not go far enough-a
much larger area was destroyed than the proposal indicates and needs to
be restored.
The development will have an adverse impact on the National Park. The
proposed landscaped gardens are likely to increase the nutrients, sediment
and weeds which enter the creek-line, and therefore the National Park,
because of the inadequacy of a buffer to the creek-line.
The unauthorised work and proposed Landscape Plans contravene a number
of requirements of Council's LEP91.
We urge Councillors NOT to give retrospective approval to this environmental
vandalism.