NIRAG held its last quarterly meeting on 13th November and the minutes are available on the Flame website.
It’s been another busy year with a lot of community interaction assisting Wollongong Council in the interim role as Neighbourhood Forum 3, covering the suburbs from Woonona to Austinmer. In August we celebrated 40 years of continuous community representation, and donated four folios of records to the Local Studies Library.
NIRAG members have been active, sharing information about the engagement process, and responding to planning and draft strategy documents. We have had some success representing community concerns to Council about various Development Applications, and made submissions on the Anglicare Sandon Point Seniors Housing Concept, the State Planning Controls & Housing Policy, the Integrated Transport Strategy, and the Community Strategic Plan, while supporting active transport.
NIRAG continues to actively work to achieve a footpath in Point St between the two O’Brien St intersections so children and elderly may walk safely without walking in traffic lanes. This is vital before Geraghty St bridge is constructed as part of the Anglicare, Seniors Living Development, which will increase traffic considerably, by connecting to Wrexham Road, Thirroul.
NIRAG has supported the Old Bulli Community Group concerns aiming to improve Hospital Road parking for Bulli Hospital following redevelopment and the sale of the old building site to Landcom, though very little progress has been made. We are also following up changes to Private Certifiers notification requirements, McCauley Lodge redevelopment and associated emergency access/ evacuation concerns for developments relying on Lawrence Hargrave Drive in particular; and have seen Transport NSW reverse its decision to ignore the Movement and Place planning and design process for Thirroul village.
At our meeting last month we had two presentations; one from Council on the 10-year Community Strategic Plan (CSP) and also from John Buchelin from Electrify 2515 who explained the project and research aims. At the meeting we recognised that there is an opportunity to enhance the green corridor by including Lot 303, the undeveloped flood prone 7ha area of land at Sandon Point between Hewitts Creek and the Sydney Water pumping station and State Government and Council are urged to find a way to keep this land as a nature reserve for community use.
Throughout the year each Monday morning the NIRAG/Hewitts Ck Bushcare group, led by Ian McKinlay, meet at the Hewitts Creek cycleway bridge to care for the site south of the creek, control noxious weeds and revegetate with endemic species. Members again volunteered in February and September participating as part of the Clean Up Australia and the Spring Rise and Shine campaigns to cleanup the Hewitts Ck/McCauleys Beach and Sandon Point area.
The next NIRAG quarterly meeting will be on Wednesday, 12 February 2025 at 7pm at the Bulli Community Centre. All are welcome to share and contribute.
Contact Ross Dearden by email: nirag@bigpond.com
