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March 29, 2024

Bid to conduct survey over Tweed Coast sports field stalls

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The Black Rocks sportsfield is in an isolated area within the Pottsville wetlands.
The Black Rocks sports field is in an isolated area within the Pottsville wetlands.

Luis Feliu

A Tweed shire councillor’s move to survey ratepayers of the lower Tweed Coast over the future of the controversial Black Rocks sports field at Pottsville was described as ‘bizarre’ before it was decided to hold a workshop on how the survey should be worded.

The move follows calls over the years by koala-protection campaigners for the sports field, in an isolated area surrounded by koala habitat and corridors, to be closed and revegetated, and another site found for it.

But Cr Barry Longland, a longtime opponent of the calls to revegetate the field, wants council to conduct the mail survey of ratepayers who live in the 2489-postcode area to see what their preferred option for the field is.

At last Thursday’s council meeting, mayor Katie Milne objected to Cr Longland’s proposed wording for the survey and was backed by veteran Cr Warren Polglase in a successful motion to conduct a workshop on it.

Cr Milne said the survey wording did not have an option to close the sports field and establish one in another location, an inclusion which she said was only logical.

But Cr Longland refused to include the option, saying ‘the question is whether we retain the sports field or get rid of it, after that we will see what we have to do’.

Cr Polglase said the the survey needed to be a ‘properly considered worded document’ so that ‘it can be a decision that we in the community can live with in time’.

He said it also needed ‘professional input’ to ‘get it right’

‘I was the only councillor here when the Black Rocks sports field was first developed… and that was the area that was identified as being the best for the sports field,’ Cr Polglase said.

‘It seems today that may not have been the right decision. I believe we as a council have a responsibility to protect the koalas in a better manner and consequently we need to look at the best outcome.

‘To close the sports field down may put council liable to the developer for compensation. This sports field is not just used by the people of Pottsville, there are a lot of other people who use it as well’, he said.

Deputy mayor Gary Bagnall described Cr Longland’s motion as ‘quite bizarre’, saying it seemed it was all about Cr Longland having ‘a personal fight with a group of environmentalists in the shire’ over the issue.

Cr Bagnall slammed Cr Longland over his voting pattern on several animal-related issues recently.

‘I find your voting in recent times is equally as bizarre, I found it very strange that for years you supported dogs in Kings Forest (the proposed township development), then you put up a motion that dogs should be excluded,’ he said.

‘Here we have you supporting the (koala) gate, now you want the gate pulled out. Dogs in, dogs out; gates in, gates out.  And it appears to me that this thing with the sports field and revegetation is more about your personal battle with one group of environmentalists.’

Minister surprised at location

Cr Bagnall then told council that when he visited former state environment minister Rob Stokes in Sydney last year and discussed a contentious proposal by Cr Longland for the sports field’s entry to include a koala-proof grid, the minister was surprised at the location of the field after seeing it on a map.

Cr Bagnall said Mr Stokes asked him ‘What’s is that doing there? I’ll pay your council to revegetate it’.

Cr Bagnall said that later, the state Office of Environment and Heritage wrote to council to advise they would intervene ‘if anything threatened the koalas’ and that a koala-proof gate should be retained at the sports field entry.

Cr Bagnall said ‘Cr Longland, it’s not an issue of the people of Pottsville… these koalas are integral to the survival of the whole Tweed Coast colony: this is not just an issue of one group of people, it’s an issue of the state, of the nation and of the world’.

‘This motion doesn’t give any information about the viability of the koalas.’

Cr Longland’s motion read: ’The letter to each ratepayer be written in the following terms: “There have been calls from some over the past four years for Council to close the Black Rocks Sports Field at Pottsville and re-vegetate the area.

“The field occupies four hectares at the eastern boundary of 271 hectares of the Black Rocks Koala Activity Precinct which, according to a recent study, supports a stable koala population. That habitat forms part of the designated koala activity precincts surrounding Pottsville totalling 922 hectares.

“Council has a responsibility to provide adequate green space for outdoor recreational use to support healthy communities. The loss of this playing field will likely impact on access to attractive and usable green space for the expanding population of the Pottsville area.

“For this reason, Council has resolved to seek the opinion of lower Tweed Coast residents and ratepayers on their preferred option regarding the future of the Black Rocks Sports Field.

“If it is determined that the Sports Field should be retained, expert advice recommends that the entry to the field be designed to mitigate against the potential for koalas to enter the nearby urban environment.

“This will involve either a koala grid or a gate at the entrance. Council values your opinion and thanks you for your input to this process. Please circle your preferred option, sign and return to Council in the reply paid envelope by 1 May 2016.

Option 1 – Retain the Sports Field and install an automated gate which will be self-opening during daylight hours and closed in darkness when koalas are most active.

Option 2 – Close Black Rocks Sports Field and re-vegetate the area.”

Cr Carolyn Byrne said she had concerns about the survey and that council had to ensure the community ‘is well informed about the issue’.

‘I don’t think the amazing amount of anti-social behaviour will go away if the area is revegetated,’ Cr Byrne said.

Cr Milne said the survey ‘does not even mention that there has been a Preliminary Determination for the koala population between Tweed and Brunswick Rivers to be listed as an endangered local population’.

Cr Longland spoke against the mayor’s amendment, saying ‘it strings out the thing continuously’ and that he thought the wording was ‘unbiased’.

Earlier in the meeting during community access, Black Rocks resident David Norris told councillors the koala population in the area was declining, with six deaths in the past two years of koalas around the sports field due to stress related diseases.

Mr Norris said the reason the Threatened Species Conservation Society that he headed was concerned about the sports field was because koala expert Dr Steve Phillips had advised that ‘one of the strong arguments for revegetation of the Black Rocks sports field involved habitat fragmentation, patch size and the associated edge-to-area ratio’.

He quoted Dr Phillips saying this month that ’More specifically, the current location of the sports field was within a regenerating habitat block, the importance of which is readily apparent as a connectivity hub through which koala recruitment/dispersal to the south-east, southwest and north can theoretically occur’.

‘Yet despite its importance the sports field (including the road reserve) offers an edge of approximately 1600m that is exposed to ongoing disturbance events and the depredations of domestic dogs,’ Dr Phillips had said.

‘The small koala population that now survives in the habitat surrounding the sports field certainly does not need more disturbance, it needs to be left in peace, nurtured and allowed (or even assisted) to recover to more sustainable levels.

‘Revegetating the sports field will remove that 1600m edge and create an ecologically important habitat block that will make a meaningful contribution to the recovery needs of the Tweed Coast koala population.’

 


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1 COMMENT

  1. The insane thing about this issue is that if Cr Longland had voted to keep the koala protection gates locked 24/7 with a key being provided for authorised users as recommended by the Koala Advisory Group at the time, very likely we would not have lost those 5 koalas to chlamydia.

    However because the gates are open all day every day there have been extremely noisy events like paramotoring (!), petrol-fuelled model aeroplane competitions, trail bikes and hooning right beside the breeding area, along with council mowing and brushcutting besides the koala hub along with a slew of illegal activities (see http://www.blackrockskoalas.org/noise.html ) This noise prevents koalas from getting the 20 hrs sleep a day they need, their immune system weakens and they become vulnerable to chlamydia which only manifests under stress.

    Council has ignored reports of extreme noise at Black Rocks and is making no effort to help these koalas.

    The best solution for the koalas is to revegetate the sports field, fully enclave the area with a continuous fence and keep people out until the koalas recover from not only the Xmas 2014 fire but all these human disturbances. Once koala populations recover and the trees have grown the area could be transformed into a koala sanctuary – sensitively done of course – imagine what a boost for local businesses! Something we all could be proud of.

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