Plan of management for community land needs a rethink, CEN

The Community Environment Network

(CEN) says Central Coast Council’s draft plan of management for over 2,100 individual parcels of community land grouped into 400 sites could fail to meet its legal obligations under the NSW Local Government Act and Regulations.

“We understand that Council needs to fix problems with its management of community land,” CEN Chair Gary Chestnut said.

“Some land has never been given a category and other land has, according to the Council, been given the wrong category.

“The exhibited draft plan of management and the schedule of land are just not good enough.

“The Local Government Act is crystal clear about what plans of management for community land are supposed to do and the generic plan exhibited by Central Coast Council fails to explain how the Council will manage its most important

Community sport across the northern Central Coast is the big winner with many projects being financed through the NSW Government’s Local Sport Grants Program.

Member for Wyong and Shadow Minister for Central Coast, David Harris the cash boost would turbocharge participation in sport across all age groups and bring the community closer together.

“It is so important we continue supporting our local sporting clubs – they are the life-blood of our communities and key to ensuring our kids live a healthy and happy lifestyle,” he said. The money will go towards improved sport facilities and accessibility and to hold new events and development public land to preserve its qualities.”

Chestnut said CEN’s submission on the draft plan outlines multiple problems with the way Council has conducted the public consultation on the classification or reclassification of around 400 community land sites across the Coast.

“There were not enough public hearings and the programs. hearings did not go for long enough,” the submission says.

CEN has opposed Council’s intention to replace site and category-specific plans of management with a generic plan of management for the 400 sites.

“We believe this approach will result in poor outcomes for the community and the local environment and we’ve asked Council to slow down and have a rethink,” Chestnut said. “Any site that includes more than one class of community land needs to have its own plan of management and so do sites that are clearly of long-term value to the community.

CEN is especially alarmed by the approach Council has taken to land classified as Natural Areas which includes bushland, wetlands, escarpment, watercourse, foreshore or any other area prescribed under the Act.

“For Natural Areas Council must ‘conserve biodiversity and maintain ecosystem function’ while permitting access to the land in a manner that will ‘minimise and mitigate any disturbance caused by human intrusion.

“The exhibited Plan of Management appears to give