April 8, 2022

Gunnedah Shire Council’s Deputy Mayor is “shocked and bitterly disappointed” with the Independent Planning Commission’s “April Fool’s Day” decision to short-change the Gunnedah Shire in its approval of Whitehaven’s Narrabri Underground Stage 3 Project.

“This approval will see the Gunnedah community subsidising the development impacts to the tune of $2 million,” Councillor Rob Hooke said.

“The IPC has taken Whitehaven’s offer as the preferred position, thereby clearly siding with the applicant and leaving little room for us to negotiate.”

Council argues that the Shire is entitled to more than the $1.4 million offered, based on an independent impact report Council commissioned to help negotiate the Planning Agreement with Whitehaven Coal.

The Infrastructure Services Impact Model (ISIM) was based on the Environmental Impact Statement and Social Impact Assessment used by the IPC to determine the application, and Cr Hooke said the report made it clear that the Planning Agreement fell well short of the actual impact that would be felt by the Shire.

 “This ISIM highlighted that the impact of the development on the roads of the Gunnedah Shire alone, was more than $3.3 million,” Cr Hooke said.

 “This represents just 35 per cent of the pool of funds available, despite the Social Impact Assessment highlighting that almost 50 per cent of workers and contractors of the new development will be domiciled in the Gunnedah Shire.

“It is incredulous for anyone to think that a developer undertaking a $404 million development, and whose product value per train load dwarfs the requested contribution, cannot afford that which the community is seeking and is entitled to.”

Cr Hooke said the IPC had ignored Council’s well-informed submissions, despite acknowledging Council’s position in the statement of reasons for the approval.

“For the IPC to be taken seriously and as a genuinely independent body, it must enforce realistic, meaningful and equitable compensation via the Planning agreement process for Local Government Areas that are impacted by State Significant Developments,” he said.

“Council and the community are left feeling that the NSW Department of Planning and the IPC are walking away from their responsibility to uphold NSW legislation and associated frameworks to ensure that all developers enter into appropriate planning agreements and not leave communities bearing the cost of developer’s profits.

“Council calls on our local member to make representations to the NSW Planning Minister to review the process which allows this injustice to occur.”

Caption: Gunnedah Shire Council says the Gunnedah Shire community deserves better.

ENDS

For more information, contact Gunnedah Shire Council’s media team on (02) 6740 2100.