Resident sent to hospital amid Campbelltown Council battle

He says he’s just a “little battler”, now he has been rushed to the emergency room after a health scare due to stress amid an ongoing fight with his local council.

One Athelstone man says he suffered a heart attack after his ongoing battle with the Campbelltown Council over land swap plans caused him significant stress.

Meanwhile the plans, which involve a land swap between the council and St Ignatius’ College, are forging on following a round of community consultation.

Now council chief executive Paul Di Iulio has said the idea of a trade has been in the works for years despite ratepayers only being informed in May this year.

Bakhill Road resident Darryl Reid said the deal was “less a land swap and more straight out thievery” and the stress it had put him under while fighting it saw him end up in the emergency department.

“I had a heart attack and ended up at Modbury Hospital,” he said.

Darryl Reid with fellow concerned residents. Picture: Brinley Duggan

“When they put all the gauges on me my heartbeat was out of place, and it was all due to stress.

“In the hospital report it says ‘has (a lot of) stress recently due to issues with council’.

“I’m only a little battler, and I’m not just fighting the council, I’m fighting the sixth richest private school in South Australia.”

If completed the proposal would see Manresa Court, an access point to St Ignatius’, become exclusively used as access to the school from Gorge Road.

With Manresa Court closed off on the eastern end, the council would install a roundabout on Maryvale Road, reconnecting Manresa Court from the western end – allowing access back to Bakhill Road.

The proposal was first discussed, confidentially, by council on March 15 before consultation was distributed to just 12 houses – those which use a road by necessity to access their homes.

Manresa Court was blocked off to Maryvale Road in the 1970s following a fatal car crash at the four way intersection once existing there.

A revised plan for a land swap between Campbelltown Council and St Ignatius' College. Picture: Campbelltown Council

Other residents have also expressed their concerns to the council about the plans.

Among the issues raised was preventing parents parking in the diverted street to pick up their children, and the removal of 16 trees.

The council adjusted the plans to include a public walkway connecting residents to Gorge Road and no-parking zones.

One month after the proposal was first discussed by the council, the college submitted a development application as part of its masterplan.

By May a second application had been made for a double-storey art, design and technology building.

Artist impressions of a proposed two-storey art, design and tech building to be built at St Ignatius' College. Picture: Instagram

Mr Di Iulio said the council would continue to undertake “broad community consultation” prior to making any “further” decisions on the plan.

He expressed his concern for Mr Reid’s health scare and did not rule out scrapping the land swap altogether, pending the result of the community consultation.

“Council will be guided by the feedback that it receives from the community in making its final decision,” Mr Di Iulio said.

St Ignatius’ College principal Peter Coffey told The Advertiser in May the project was a “win-win” deal and it would improve student safety and give residents better access to their homes.