Luis Feliu
Tweed shire councillors have brought to a head the controversy surrounding the future of the Black Rocks Sports Field south of Pottsville by voting to keep it as a public open space rather than revegetate it for koala habitat.
They also ditched a plan to survey locals about it, backing their staff which had seen it as ‘unnecessary and inappropriate’.
A majority of councillors at last night’s meeting voted also to back the staff recommendation to upgrade the entrance of the field with an automated vehicle gate and retain the existing site for the approved Pottsville Men’s Shed, both bones of contention in the past year.
The decision was praised afterward by Cr Barry Longland, who had long championed the field to be kept for locals’ recreation.
He was backed by pro-development bloc Warren Polglase, Carolyn Byrne and Phil Youngblutt. Deputy mayor Gary Bagnall voted against .
Mayor Katie Milne, who had long pushed for protection of surrounding koala habitat from the isolated sport field and its activities, remains absent due to illness.
Cr Longland told Echonetdaily the decision brought to a closure the long debate and that council’s ‘highly respected environmental scientists, ecology professionals and recreation services staff’ had made ‘a compelling assessment to support that decision’ in their report.
He said the local koala population, according to council’s plan of management for the animal, was stable and would not be impacted by the continued use of the site as a sports field or for a men’s shed.
He also claimed there had been ’mounting calls from the people of Pottsville asking that council take a stand against the potential loss of the field’ and attacked opposition as the ‘seemingly desperate attempt by a few to garner support for the re-vegetation of the field’.
Cr Longland said opponents to the field had launched an on-line petition ‘almost entirely involving input from Europe and North America’, which had prompted him to put forward the plan to survey ‘those most affected by the loss of this facility so the “silent majority” could be given a voice’.
‘This decision now dispenses with the need for such a survey,’ he said.
‘The survey always had the potential to further divide the community and provide a platform for this small group to spread confusion, misinformation and fear, and, for this reason, I am greatly relieved that this can now be avoided.
‘Essentially, what this group proposes is that Council purchase and clear four hectares of bush land on the lower Tweed Coast, at great expense to ratepayers, so that the four hectares of the current sports field can be re-vegetated.
‘This seems to me to be an absurd proposition which is highlighted in the council report.
‘The decision also provides a much more practical and safer treatment for the entry to the sports field: an attractively landscaped entry with a self opening gate will, once and for all, satisfactorily address both koala protection and public access needs.
‘Thankfully, the debate is now concluded and, hopefully, the people of Pottsville and the lower Tweed coast can accept the decision of Council, based on the recommendations of their experts, and move on in a spirit of co-operation and community,’ Cr Longland said in his statement.
But one of the moves’ staunchest opponents, Blacks Rocks resident David Norris, says the staff report is flawed and that council had to date been unable to stop activities there impacting on koalas such as roaming dogs, motor cycling, golf or anti-social behaviour and hooning.
Mr Norris, who helped for the Threatened Species Conservation Society to campaign against the urban impacts on the local koala habitat, said the ‘only effective koala protection measure’ was to buffer koalas from these activities such as revegetating the field and locking the gates currently there.
He also said it was questionable whether Black Rocks Sports Field needed to be replaced as there were three other sports fields in Pottsville already.
He said koala expert Dr Steve Phillips was of the view that revegetating the field would 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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