Asren Pugh, Labor candidate for Ballina
I am profoundly disappointed at the decision by the Northern Joint Regional Planning Panel (JRPP) to defer a decision on one of the West Byron mega-development DAs.
Speaker after speaker at the meeting, including myself, expressed their opposition to the development. The community, council, and the JRPP were blindsided by the late submission of hundreds of pages of new documents that significantly changed the development only five days before the meeting.
The changes were so big that Council staff did not even have enough time to put together a report on the new information and were clearly designed to overwhelm the committee, so it couldn’t make a decision.
It is clear that the proponents of this development have no regard for public opinion and no respect or consideration for the people of Byron Bay and the Byron Shire.
Their total disregard for proper process in submitting pages and pages of changed plans just days before this meeting shows utter contempt for our community.
There are so many reasons to say No to this development and very few, if any, reasons to say Yes.
I have visited the West Byron development site on numerous occasions with the NSW Leader of the Opposition, Luke Foley, to express NSW Labor’s strong opposition to this inappropriate development.
