Tweed Shire Council and Pottsville residents have managed to keep more residential housing and/or a seniors living estate off local flood prone land

In the first half of 2019 during the last days of Northern Rivers innocence or ignorance of what large scale climate change impacts meant, local governments wrote paragraphs like this in their planning documents based on flood data in some cases already ten years out of date.

‘“low island” means an area that is above the FPL and surrounded on its entire perimeter during and 100 year ARI event, but is inundated by the PMF. When flood levels exceed the FPL, in events up to the PMF, low islands become totally inundated, posing significant risk to isolated residents without flood free access to high land or shelter. Local examples include filled residential estates in Banora Point, West Kingscliff, and Pottsville, and raised dwellings in Chinderah, South Murwillumbah and Rural Villages.…..

A3.2.3 Urban Areas

Levees at Murwillumbah and Tweed Heads South provide structural protection against flood inundation to varying degrees. In other areas, planning controls are used to contain future flood damage. In 2009, a levee was retrofitted along Cudgera Creek to protect the Seabreeze Estate at Pottsville. In the event of a flood exceeding the levee height, the protected areas will flood quickly with little warning time and very rapid rises in water levels.

Council's design flood is based on the 100 year ARI event; that is a flood with a 1 in 100 (or 1%) chance of occurring in any one year.’  [Tweed Development Control Plan SECTION A3 - Development of Flood Liable Land VERSION 1.5 (DRAFT)]

Behind mentions of levee banks and need for early evacuation in flood prone areas in such documents, found in the planning files across seven regional local governments, there still lurked the thought that new housing estates and residential complexes could go ahead because floods could simply be managed by levees, land fill and residential floor heights.

Although at state level there remains environment & planning legislation which hasn’t caught up with life as it is experienced in a changing climate, there are signs that at local government level the new realities associated with the many river systems and coastal floodplains in north east NSW are slowly beginning to sink in.

Even if it apparently hasn't even begun to sink in with Newland Developers and Altitude Lifestyle, given plans for Lot 1747, DP 1215252 Seabreeze Boulevard Pottsville anticipated 6.3 ha of landfill to a height of 3.1m AHD. 

A large-scale landfill height within a range Yamba residents living approx. 155km to the south of Pottsville can attest is very likely to cause flood and storm waters to find new destructive paths though long established residential streets.

Vacant land bounded on all four sides by Seabreeze Boulevard, Tom Merchant Drive, Cudgera Creek and Sawtell Circuit, Pottsville NSW.

Echo, 13 April 2023:

The 6.3ha of vacant land at 1 Seabreeze Boulevard, Pottsville which is earmarked in the Tweed Development Control Plan 2008 (DCP 2008) as a potential school site has once again been saved from being developed as housing.

The developers Newland Developers Pty Ltd have had two previous development applications refused for DAs for residential developments at the site in 2017 and 2020. The Land and Environments Court (L&EC) once again dismissed the deemed refusal on 31 March, this time for a seniors housing development.

The developers had taken the Tweed Shire Council (TSC) to the L&EC on appeal for their proposed 93 lots for seniors housing as part of a community title subdivision making this the third time TSC had to defend the site for a future school.

Flooding a key issue

A second matter heard by the LEC, to carry out water and sewer supply works on the property, was approved by the Court, subject to certain conditions.

In its ruling on the current Concept DA, the primary finding of the L&EC was that the Concept DA failed to adequately address provisions for emergency response in situations such as flooding.

Mayor of Tweed Shire Chris Cherry said this was a good outcome for the Pottsville community who have long lobbied for a high school in the coastal village.

‘We welcome the judgement in the LEC on this issue,’ Cr Cherry said…..

‘Ensuring flood safety for our Seniors living communities is paramount and the decision found that this Concept DA did not provide the certainty needed for safe occupation of the site by our most vulnerable of residents.

‘This is the third time Council has had to go to the LEC to defend this piece of land, promised for education purposes when the Seabreeze Estate was formed in 2000. Each time Council has won these cases.

‘Council appealed to the NSW Government to rezone the land to infrastructure zoning so these repeated attempts could be avoided and the promise to the community could be honoured but the State Government did not support it.

‘With the recent change in State Government, and the promised support of a Pottsville High School by the new government, it is fantastic that this determination has come in now and kept this land available.’

Frontline medical staff not happy with Morrison Government's lack of thought or preparation behind the national plan to re-open Australia

 

Nurses union the ANMF calls on Australian Prime Minister Morrison to address critical concerns before triggering national plan to re-open Australia

ANMF Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Journal, 1 September 2021:

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) has written to Prime Minister Scott Morrison to outline its significant concerns regarding the government’s national plan to re-open Australia and transition the country’s pandemic response based on the Doherty Institute’s COVID-19 modelling and the Commonwealth Department of Treasury’s economic analysis.

In the letter, the union requests that more detailed modelling and analysis be undertaken and considered by National Cabinet before it takes any further steps to re-open the country.

“As you are aware, the nursing and midwifery workforces, as the largest and best distributed components of the health workforce, are fundamental to ensuring that the Australian community remains safe and healthy both during COVID outbreaks and as we seek to gradually move the nation beyond the current ‘suppression phase’ of the COVID-19 response,” ANMF Federal Secretary Annie Butler wrote.

“This means that the impacts of re-opening and transitioning the country’s national COVID-19 response prematurely without adequate planning or sufficient resourcing will disproportionately affect nurses and midwives and their capacity for ongoing delivery of quality care.”

Ms Butler argued the Doherty modelling, which currently underpins the government’s proposed re-opening plan, fails to take into account all the factors affecting this capacity.

Specifically, the ANMF has called on the government to consider the following factors before re-opening:

1. Current health system demand capacity, including expansion capacity, both critical care and general, and management of non COVID health demand

2. Assessment of safe vaccination targets, which include the entire population, not just those currently eligible

3. Vaccination rates needed for vulnerable populations, including those aged over 70 and other high-risk groups

4. Management of anticipated vaccination rollout channels for boosters, once recommended

5. The impact of the Delta and future variants, including on children, particularly in the context of uncontrolled community transmission, as is currently occurring in NSW

6. How the test-trace-isolate-quarantine TTIQ workforce will be fully resourced and maintained without impacting the nursing and midwifery workforces

7. How to ensure all communities across Australia will have equal access to safe healthcare as we progress through the pandemic

Like all Australians, Ms Butler said the ANMF was keen to transition the country’s COVID-19 response from one of strict virus suppression to more relaxed restrictions. However, it cannot happen without first addressing critical concerns, she warned.

“We cannot overstate the importance of ensuring that we do not make this transition until we can guarantee that vaccination rates and appropriate public health measures are sufficient to allow the health and aged care systems and their workforces to be able to continue to deliver best practice care to all those requiring it.”

AMA calls for stronger quarantine model – a need to move away from temporary measures and introduce permanent quarantine solutions

Australian Medical Association, 2 September 2021:

The AMA has called for an urgent stocktake of potential quarantine sites around Australia in a submission to the Chair of National Review of Hotel Quarantine, Ms Jane Halton AO PSM. Ms Halton invited the AMA to provide this submission as part of her further review into Australia’s quarantine arrangements.

Australia’s current hotel quarantine has resulted in over 30 breaches, one of which has led to the third wave of infections. Australia needs to move away from this temporary measure and introduce permanent quarantine solutions.

The AMA has welcomed the announcement of the three quarantine facilities announced in recent weeks, however the facilities will take months to complete. The AMA is also concerned about the lack of engagement with the local medical communities in the vicinity of these facilities.

The submission also calls for further examination of the options for expanding home quarantine for fully vaccinated people arriving from lower risk locations. This would alleviate some of the burden on quarantine facilities.

AMA President Dr Omar Khorshid will meet with Ms Halton in the coming weeks to further detail the AMA’s priorities in ensuring Australia has a robust quarantine regime. Underpinning the AMA’s position are two goals: To prevent COVID-19 originating overseas from spreading through Australia, and to ensure that Australians can continue to return here from overseas, ideally in increased numbers.

National Cabinet needs to look at the whole Australian hospital system, not just ICU beds

Doorstop interview, 2 September 2021:

DR OMAR KHORSHID: The AMA is today calling on National Cabinet to look at the capacity of our hospital system, not just ICU beds, but our whole hospital system, to make sure that once we open up, we don’t see a disastrous reduction in the care available to Australians who are sick simply as a result of increase in the risk of COVID in the community from opening up. And of the hospitals having to pivot towards treating COVID without treating all those other conditions that people currently present with.

The reality in public hospitals in Australia right now is that they are full, they are always full, and there are ambulances parked outside, too many of them as we speak, simply because the hospitals don't have the capacity to look after the healthcare needs of Australians. That's before COVID. And we know that as soon as COVID comes into the community, hospitals will have to stop doing elective surgery. They will have to turn their ICUs into COVID ICUs. And that means people not being able to access lifesaving cancer surgery, lifesaving heart surgery, because the ICUs will have very sick COVID patients to look after, patients who stay in the ICUs for weeks and weeks.

Now, we are not worried that our system will fail to look after COVID patients. We think the planning has been done, but we are worried about Australians who get heart attacks, who need surgery, who have a sore hip, who are going to miss out on care if we don't get the planning right. Our hospitals are starting from a position of being completely overloaded, and adding more to that load is only going to make things worse. So we're asking National Cabinet to take that into account with their planning. Is it right to open up at 70 or 80 percent if the hospitals are going to predictably fail within weeks? Which will, of course, send us straight back into lockdowns, which would be extremely disappointing for all Australians or is there a better way to plan to use our system, to make sure that the resources that we do have, limited as they are, can be best pointed towards the most efficient care possible?

Now, we're asking for planning not just around ICU beds, but around all the processes, the staffing, how we deal with COVID in hospitals, how we run our primary healthcare sector, so that we've got the best chance that when Australia does open up to the rest of the world, when we do open up our interstate borders, that we have a healthcare system available to everybody who needs it. It’s a pretty simple ask, but it's a complex task. And we believe that we must use the available weeks and months that we have, to get that planning done so that the healthcare system doesn't become the handbrake on Australia's economy and our ability to open up…...

Grafton still chasing after its lost Regional City classification

Grafton, NSW
IMAGE: www.visitnsw.com

The 2016 national census recorded the population of Grafton in the Clarence Valley as 10,385 people living in 4,696 dwellings, with an average household size of 2.27. 

Last year it was optimistically estimated that the population had grown to 10,629 people - an increase of 224 people in the last 3 years - though how many of these are Pacific Highway road workers who will soon move on to other areas is not known.

The fact of the matter is that Grafton's population in the 28 years between the 1991 and 2016 census only grew by est. 125 people. 

Grafton, which was made a city over 135 years ago, has been in decline now for at least the last 20 years. Its regional city status was removed by the Baird Coalition Government in 2016 when it was reclassified as a strategic centre.

It is unlikely to have city status reinstated while the local population continues to age and, in some years more people are leaving or dying than are coming into Grafton as permanent residents.

Clarence Valley Council continues to hope and throw money at an intractable problem........

The Daily Examiner, 21 August 2020:

Clarence Valley Council’s local strategic planning statement will form the basis of council’s direction with regard to their plans over the coming years.

It is a large document that has received submissions over the past months from community groups, government organisations and ratepayers having their say about how it should be approached.

As the draft of the plan came before this week’s Environment, Planning and Community committee, Mayor Jim Simmons took the opportunity to question the balance of where the priorities lie.

Mr Simmons said he supported the focus on returning Grafton to regional city status, and the emphasis on the strategic importance of Grafton, the surrounding infrastructure and industry.

However, he was concerned the draft was too Grafton-centric. “When I read this document, the first thing that hit my head … is the emphasis placed on expenditure in Grafton and the surrounding areas,” Cr Simmons said.

“I would like the rest of the information in the report to also hit me in the face, and get a little bit excited over what it means for areas outside Grafton.

“I’d like to see the same thing hitting me in the face for the Lower Clarence — in fact the whole Clarence Valley.” It is a sentiment reflected in comments made on the draft planning statement. The report to council notes there were a number of well-articulated concerns raised about the focus placed on Grafton and the apparent emphasis, and therefore council spending, in and around Grafton.

“This included requests for no more spending on a number of areas, including the airport, a possible freight hub, efforts to grow the population and promoting Grafton as a Regional City,” it states.

“Some submissions stated that Grafton is not an attractor for residents of the Lower Clarence, who are more likely to use Ballina and Lismore for shopping, medical, air travel and other needs.” The report states despite these submissions, it was recommended council continue to support the promotion of Grafton as a Regional City, to provide for the community and grow the economy and provide job prospects and social opportunities.....