THE TWEED SHIRE Volume 2 #08 Thursday, October 22, 2009 Advertising and news enquiries: Phone: (02) 6672 2280 Fax: (02) 6672 4933 editor@tweedecho.com.au adcopy@tweedecho.com.au www.tweedecho.com.au
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LOCAL & INDEPENDENT
Rowdy loves her Diggers Sports Koala survival ‘a
council priority’ Ken Sapwell
Tyalgum farrier Robyn Donoghue shoeing her horse Phoenix in preparation for the barrel race at the Diggers Sports gymkhana next weekend. Photo Jeff ‘Steel Heel’ Dawson Kim Cousins
Robyn ‘Rowdy’ Donoghue used to travel to the Tweed to participate in Tyalgum Diggers District Sports Gymkhana and Rodeo when she was younger and now her daughter Credence, an up and coming rider, has joined her in the saddle. These days Rowdy lives at Tyalgum and spends most of her time working as a farrier, but she comes out of retirement once a year for the Diggers gymkhana. ‘It’s only a small event but we get lots of people,’ she said. ‘It’s like a fun day for kids and their
horses. Anyone is welcome though; the barrel racing gets some serious racers.’ Held almost every year except during World War II, the 101st anniversary of the event was postponed in July this year after wet weather turned the grounds into a mud fest. Tyalgum Diggers District Sports president Joan Eccleshare said it’s an amazing record and a great old-fashioned family day out. ‘The skirmish will be great for the over 12s and there’s an alpaca petting area for the littlies. For the real littlies there’s a jumping castle and there will be a Pas de Deux performance
just before the rodeo for something different. ‘It’s the first of the next 100 years,’ she said. Starting at 9am next Saturday, October 31, and running through until 9pm that night, the not-for-profit event raises money for community groups such as veterans, preschools and special needs children at the school. They are looking for stallholders – Joan said there is space for about a dozen. Held at the Tyalgum Showground, stall fees are only $20 and you get two free entry tickets. To find out more call Joan on 02 6679 3897.
Tweed Shire Council will fight to regain planning controls over a new town at Kings Forest and wants developer Bob Ell to do more to prevent the extinction of the local koala population, including a crackdown on cats and dogs. The council has listed the koala’s survival as a priority amid a raft of concerns about concept plans for the 880ha site west of Cabarita which is set to become one of the shire’s biggest towns with up to 10,000 people. It wants Planning Minister Kristina Keneally to insist that his company Leda Holdings prepares a new koala plan of management which provides more natural corridors, at least one land bridge over a four-lane access road as well as a ban on pets likely to attack koalas. It also wants the Minister to remove planning powers from Mr Ell allowing him to set his own development standards which has led to narrow roads, few footpaths and building blocks as small as 175 square metres. It has also supported a call by Cr Barry Longland to ask Ms Keneally to visit the shire so she can appreciate local concerns about the site and to consider imposing development standards similar to Koala Beach. In a report to Tuesday’s meeting, chief planner Vince Connell warned that the fate of the shire’s dwindling koala population hinged on a plan of management ‘robust enough to manage the site in such a way that it will avoid the local extinction of koalas.’ He said the site contained core koala habitat and bordered other colonies already under threat from road kill, bushfires, dog attacks and urban expansion, and was critical to
the survival of breeding populations on the coast. But the present plan did not reduce the risk of koala mortality. Mr Connell also revealed that Mr Ell could create his own development control plan (DCP) which would be ‘the principal planning instrument to guide all future development at Kings Forest’ and would override the council’s own DCP.
Poorly planned As a result subdivisions were poorly planned with too many dead-ends and narrow roads without footpaths. It contained a mix of traditional homes, zero-lot housing, duplexes, mews, town house apartments and ‘shop-tops’. The council wants their own standards to apply and that variations be justified on a case-by-case basis ‘rather than a blanket removal of detailed controls that have been developed over many years.’ Mr Connell’s staff also signalled concerns over other aspects of the concept plans which Mr Ell amended in response to hundreds of submissions from the council, public and government agencies. Some rezonings were not supported on ecological grounds, including a four-hectare increase in residential land while all 16ha set aside for protection had been cleared of native vegetation or grew exotic pine trees. The council also raised concerns over eroded buffers on a 57ha golf course and a lack of land-forming and stormwater management plans as well as being dumped with ownership of non-complying infrastructure and a 9ha artificial lake. The council endorsed the submissions which will be sent to Ms Keneally.
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