Mayor calls for urgent community feedback after government steams ahead with Strathfield merger case

STRATHFIELD Council was given less than a month to respond to the latest manoeuvre by the State Government to forcibly merge the council with Burwood and Canada Bay.

Karen Pensabene and Nella Hall from Save our Strathfield celebrate outside the Land and Environment Court in September after the decision went in their council's favour. Picture: John Appleyard

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STRATHFIELD Council has been given less than a month to respond to the latest manoeuvre by the State Government to forcibly merge the council with Burwood and Canada Bay.

The council has until January 15 to collect community feedback on an amended report by government-appointed delegate Richard Colley which supports the amalgamation going ahead.

The report is the second attempt by Mr Colley after the original version sparked a lengthy legal stoush between the council and the Office of Local Government.

In September last year, the Land and Environment Court ruled the merger couldn’t go ahead based on two “flaws” in the report including failure to address geographic cohesion and community interests in the proposed merged area.

The amended version states the three councils have similar demographics and “shared interests” in council services and infrastructure. It recommends the merged council “quickly address the community of interest concerns in a fair and equitable way”.

Strathfield Mayor Andrew Soulos said the report still failed to address the “broad-reaching” community opposition to the merger.

“The submissions (to the original report) showed 72 per cent of residents were against the merger,” Cr Soulos said.

Strathfield Mayor Andrew Soulos.

“Three times as many people are opposed — I think the amended report is written in the same vein as the first one and not much has changed”.

Cr Soulos said the council was notified of the amendments on December 21 — less than four weeks from the cut-off date to collect community feedback.

Save Our Strathfield’s Nella Hall said the government should not have been allowed a second opportunity to amend the report — likening the process “to giving a student a second chance to sit a school exam”.

The amended report argues benefits of the amalgamation includes savings of $198 million by 2025 and increased capacity to address infrastructure backlogs.

Mr Colley also noted concerns over job security for council staff, stating employees transferring to the merged council could not be made redundant for three years.

The report recommends the merged council has 12 councillors but council wards would be scrapped. While the ward system would ensure councillors are elected from each of the current council areas, the delegate argued “a council without wards would help facilitate cohesion”.

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Strathfield Council has spent $211,000 fighting the merger, but that figure could rise pending further appeals.

Cr Soulos encouraged residents to lodge submissions by January 15.

Originally published as Mayor calls for urgent community feedback after government steams ahead with Strathfield merger case