The rezoning of the State Significant Farmland (SSF) to build the Tweed Valley Hospital on the Cudgen Plateau near Kingscliff split the community and ultimately came with an ‘iron clad’ promise from local Nationals MP Geoff Provest that no more SSF would be rezoned.
However, the land next to the hospital site was bought by Allan Larkin, Director of Digital Infratech just days before the announcement that the SSF would be rezoned for the Tweed Valley Hospital site. Since then Mr Larkin has proposed a mixed-use site called Cudgen Connection. Initially, they proposed that the site to be part of the stage 2 hospital development but this was rejected. Now they are imminently submitting a development application (DA) that provides private hospital and medical suites, essential worker housing, koala research centre, an education and community housing precinct and more at the 5.7 hectare site.
Tweed Councillors write to the government
At the recent Tweed Shire Council (TSC) meeting (16 November, 2023) Councilors voted to write to Premier of NSW, Chris Minns, NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully, NSW Leader of The Opposition, Mark Speakman, NSW Shadow Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Scott Farlow MLC, and Member for Tweed, Geoff Provest to request advice that ‘they will uphold the integrity of the Cudgen Plateau and support the existing retention of State Significant Farmland’.
When MP Provest originally promised that there would be no more development on the Cudgen Plateau The Echo also sought confirmation from then planning and agricultural ministers that they supported their local MP.
NSW Planning Minister Anthony Roberts told The Echo in February 2022 that, ‘The NSW government made a commitment to protecting the remaining Cudgen farmland in the Tweed Shire. I support the local member and thank Geoff Provest for his advocacy in ensuring this land is protected for the Tweed Shire community’.
Then Minister for Agriculture Dugald Saunders also told The Echo that in February 2022 that, ‘The NSW Government made a commitment to protecting the remaining Cudgen farmland in the Tweed Shire. I support the local member and thank Geoff Provest for his advocacy in ensuring this land is protected for the Tweed Shire community’.
Labor were on board
At the same time the opposition Labor party also committed to preserving the SSF with ajoint statement from local Tweed Labor councillor Reece Byrnes, along with then Shadow Minister for the North Coast Walt Secord, and Justine Elliot, Federal Member for Richmond saying, ‘Labor has always been committed to protecting the Cudgen farmland from development and that hasn’t changed. While we do not know the full details of this $250 million [cudgen Connection) project and it may have some merits, it should not be built on state significant farmland.’
The Labor position was again confirmed during the state election by candidate Craig Elliot who said that, ‘Labor is on the record as being committed to protecting State Significant Farmland. I have never supported having this prime agricultural land rezoned and sold off to developers.’
The Echo has contacted Labor NSW Minister for Planning Paul Scully and Labor NSW Minister for Agriculture Tara Moriarty to confirm Labor’s commitment to this statement and they will be responding by the end of today.
Elliott and Byrnes throw support behind SSF
Labor’s Tweed councillor Byrnes and Federal Member for Richmond Justine Elliot have today confirmed with The Echo that, ‘In relation to the Cudgen Connection development, Justine Elliot (Federal Member for Richmond) and Cr Reece Byrnes’ (Tweed Councillor) position remains the same. We stand with the community and oppose the development.’
The ALP also promised (in the 1980s) that “no Australian child would be living in poverty by 1990″…
Then at the last federal election they promised “nobody left behind or held back”… How’s that all working out, eh?
It is my experience that the ALP are just as hollow and untrustworthy as the Coalition are.
Your smoke screening won’t work – we’re always better off under Labor, shame they always inherit a fiscal mess, then get the blame for LNP incompetence and pork barrelling.. as we have here.
Stuck with good ole publicity Geoff for a other term.
Well said JMo – Justine Elliot also said in her maiden speech to parliament….. in particular, a long-term commitment must be made to the restoration of our XPT train. Many locals are very positive about federal Labor’s long-term commitment to restoring the train. After that our not so beloved federal member for nothing did exactly that……nothing about restoring the XPT train.
The XPT train is running. Just not a train on the unusable tracks, which are carrying much more human traffic on two wheels and two feet.
You obviously didn’t take a lot of notice over the last twelve years.
So now there’s a big hospital placed out in the country where most of the population can’t reach it during floods, or easily via public transport, andCouncil will have to spend time and money fighting off greedy developers from the richest farmland in the country..
Way to go LNP, what a stupid place to put it.
It doesn’t even have more beds than the current Tweed Hospital. Who gained?
Well you can always trust a developer and a nationals mp like provost to do the right thing( sic)! Look forward to continuing court cases as the developer keeps Re proposing the same plan like iron gates near evans head. Same issue Re ssf lands near Alstonville, thought there was a shortage of health staff.
The Tweed council and community should really be asking for a royal commission, into just how this never to be built on, SSF was somehow “Appropriated by a court forced order”, against the owners and communities interests, with no consultation permitted and unbelievably rezoned for the hospital that should obviously according to all legislation and requirements have been built elsewhere, by the then LNP Coalition health minister and support and interests in the Tweed National party!
This still as yet, has never been fully investigated or explained to the still astonished community, now watching what everyone knows has always been this ongoing suspect trojan horse National party land rezoning operation in action. Which land banked parcel is next Tweed National party, surely you have a listed schedule for opposite the hospital site and elsewhere you would share with the concerned council and your community? Just why are they always the last to find out about these land banking rezoning in Tweed shire?
Yes!
Koala research ?!
That’s a bit of bullshit to make developers sound ethical.
How much more research do we need to know they need habitat?
Koalas need the trees more than a building devoted to them.
Agree absolutely.
‘Concept’ drawings are a cunning way of getting a rezoning with no guarantees that anything particular will be built on land. Speculators can pay big bucks to local and state elected members to get a decision that turns a property into something far more valuable. Follow the money.