Sally Townley to call extraordinary meeting over Cultural and Civic Space
Concerns over ‘radical change in direction’ prompts action as Council dips into contingency fund within weeks of controversial project’s start.
Coffs Harbour
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The commemorative shovels have only just been cleaned after breaking ground on the wildly divisive Cultural and Civic Space and already it’s attracting attention for the wrong reasons.
The development will most likely become the subject of another extraordinary council meeting after Cr Sally Townley raised concerns over a decision to transport acid sulfate soils removed from the site to Queensland.
During Thursday’s Coffs Harbour City Council meeting Cr Townley said she was “shocked” to learn of the new plan after being assured throughout the CCS decision making process that the contaminated soil would be treated in Sawtell.
Acid sulfate soils are natural sediments that contain iron sulfide and are commonly found on the North Coast. Left undisturbed, they do not present any risk, but when they are exposed to air the iron sulfides react with oxygen to create sulfuric acid.
Council recently revealed the change of direction while addressing community concerns in a post on the Heart of Coffs Facebook page.
“The (CCS) Project Board has decided the best alternative method of remediation is to transport the material to a specialist facility in Queensland,” Council stated.
“The alternative method addresses community concern and will result in better environmental outcomes as the soil will be able to be reused.”
“There is no additional budget impact as Council’s adopted budget of $81.27m for the Project includes a contingency amount to specifically deal with changes to the plan for the excavation and removal of soil during the groundworks phase of the Project.”
However, drawing down on contingency funds so early in the project has alarmed many and Ms Townley said it was an “extremely large cost” to incur on something that had been discussed on multiple occasions and mentioned in several reports.
Raising the ‘matter of an urgent nature’, Ms Townley publicly called for an extraordinary meeting to find out “exactly what happened” and to discuss the new plan further, including how the decision on the alternative arrangements was made.
“I feel like we have known about this issue for a long time … so to find out all of a sudden that actually it isn’t happening and there is another plan that is going to be much more expensive, I don’t believe that was an (un) foreseeable event.”
“Having gone out on a limb thinking this is really tightly controlled … to then suddenly find out about this radical change in direction (means) this is urgent and I will be seeking an extraordinary meeting.”
Judging by the response from her fellow Councillors it is likely the meeting will take place and would become the second extraordinary meeting this year in relation to the CCS.
In March, Keith Rhoades, Tegan Swan and Paul Amos brought forward a rescission motion in an attempt to stop the development proceeding, a move that ultimately failed.
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