Mayors join forces to delay Allianz Stadium consultation meeting
City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has slammed the upgrade of Sydney Football Stadium as a “scandalous waste of public money” and called for the deferral of tonight’s Community Consultative Committee meeting.
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City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore slammed the upgrade of Sydney Football Stadium as a “scandalous waste of public money” and called for the deferral of tonight’s Community Consultative Committee meeting.
Cr Moore joined forces with Waverley Mayor John Wakefield and Randwick Mayor Kathy Nielson, in an effort to defer tonight’s Community Consultative Committee meeting.
Together, they wrote to the Planning Minister, Anthony Roberts, calling for its immediate deferral until their concerns have been addressed.
“It is our view that the establishment of the committee has not been undertaken in accordance with the Department’s own guidelines and conditions of consent,” they wrote.
“The conditions of consent for the demolition of the stadium require that a Community Consultative Committee be established and begin to exercise its functions, in accordance with the Department’s guidelines, before the significant structural demolition can begin.”
Cr Moore said while some of the work has begun, she said the major demolition should be delayed until after the state election.
“The decision to demolish and rebuild, if that was not bad enough, not even respecting their own conditions and guidelines of the Department,” Cr Moore said.
“They want to get it over and done with, it’s this tick-the-box planning.
“The Committee should have received plans before the meeting and they haven’t.”
“I think it’s a gross misappropriation of the minister’s power,” she said.
“We need to assure all the residents of NSW that the planning processes are being agreed to and followed correctly and appropriately.
“At the moment, we don’t have that confidence, and I think it’s a very sad time for NSW.”
Prue Brown from the Paddington Darlinghurst community working group said residents have various concerns, “one is whether this was a good use of public money for spending,” she said.
“At this stage, we’re hoping the meeting would be postponed until proper processes have been followed.
“When governments are dealing with a project that has had such community opposition, you would expect that there would be good governance, but we haven’t seen that today.
“Obviously there are problems with toilets, mobility access and catering.
“But is it a sensible use of public money and would a refurbishment have been better.”
In the meantime, the Land and Environment Court has given community group Local Democracy Matters the green light to legally challenge the stadium’s demolition.
In court yesterday, Land and Environment Court justice Terry Sheahan agreed to the group’s request to fast-track the case, setting down an initial hearing date for February 20.
The group’s lawyer Jason Lazarus had argued the challenge should be heard on an “urgent basis” due to the “imminent threat” of hard demolition works, scheduled to begin later this month.
Contractors from Lendlease started “soft stripping” demolition works last week and by Monday had already ripped out half the stadium’s 44,000 seats.
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