Us, being long established locals of Katoomba in the Australian Blue Mountains, suddenly ‘out-of-the-blue’ last week we received a threatening letter from Blue Mountains {city} Council in our letter box, which included four colour photos of the front of our property and complaining and threatening us.

We’ve always paid our rates but for the last 26 years since we bought here! 

Council’s obscure written threat to us, and it’s apparently just us alone, no-one else its seems accusing us of…

“obstructing pedestrian passage, wheelchair use of the footpath and creating a safety hazard for pedestrians“

Seriously, Blue Mountains Council?   

 

 

So, the following is an extract of that intimidating letter from Blue Mountains Council addressed to us in our post box.  Its 3-page letter has photos of our verge.   It is dated 8th May 2026 and arrived in our letter box the following Tuesday 12th May 2026, one of the regular weekdays that our post arrives around our old neck of the woods.  

 

 

Mmm this is dodgy.  Some initial thoughts by us:

1. Council’s inspection of the footpath – initiated by Council bureacrat NAZIs?

2. The footpath “is obstructing pedestrian passage, wheelchair use of the footpath and creating a safety hazard for pedestrians.”?

3. “Council owes a duty of care to ensure the safety of pedestrians on Council’s Footpaths”?  Since when ever?

4. “Council requests that you trim and maintain the planted vegetation to behind the edge of the footpath, providing 1.2 metre footpath width to a height of 2 metres, within 28 days.” Why such military paratmeters?  What Council by-law specifically applies?   

5. How’s this threat by council bureacrats:  “In the eventthat the requested work has not been carried out, Council staff may proceed with the necessary work, and you may be invoiced for the work carried out.”

6. The Council bureaucrat’s love and kisses closure sentence:  “If you require any further information in relation to the requirement to prune the vegetation on the footpath , please do not hesitate to contact me on 4780 5000 during business hours.”

 

So, something ratty bloody smells, something is definitely going on.  Why after 26 years this crap threat out-of-the-blue?   The letter is unannounced and targeting just our property, but no one elses and is misguided, unreasonable, non-communitate and contains a vandalistic and financial threat.  Does council pose some clandestine ulterior motive here?  What is the source?  Is it spiteful?  Is it politically motivated? 

Blue Mountains Mayor Greenhill and GM Dillon what is going on?  Fic your own backyard and leave ourlawabideing ratepayers in this 1870s heritage listed North’s Estate precinct in The Gully alone for Christ sake!

 

 

Meanwhile, here’s below our footpath in one of Council’s four included photos of its letter (taken without knocking on our door nor asking our permission.  Indeed, one of the four photos exposes our car registration – nice unethical compliment Council desk jockey!  

 

 

We at The Habitat Advocate don’t muck around dealing with government threats and hypocrisy….

The heritage streetscape ain’t standard round these parts, as this old preceinct dates back to the 1870s.   For instance, our verge and footpath are nonstandard, since the verge and footpath are in reverse justaposition to modern streetscapes.   But this is the heritage Blue Mountains for you and most locals like it the way it is, including this author. 

But hey Council, what of the telegraph poles in the footpath outside our place in the same locale?   Is someone complaining about wheelchair access around them as well?   Is Council planning to have Endeavour Energy put the power underground?  This author did just that years ago at some considerable personal cost of $6000+.  

 

 

Try wheelchair use through a telegraph pole in the footpath outside our front Council!   Try getting your nominal wheelchair around these  pole obstacles.   In the 26 years we’ve lived at this address in Inner West Katoomba we’ve never observed a single wheelchair in our street, dudes!   The Mountains rural landscape ain’t extactly wheelchair friendly for the most part.   So how conjured a fabricated justification to hatefully bulldoze our verge and how bloody bureaucatically hypocritical?

Much of the Blue Mountains has no footpaths anyway, certainly not in our old 1870s precinct.  This is not contemporary new urban Sydney.  

 

 

Council’s very ignorant letter comes from some new blow-in unknown Council office-bound staffer whom we have never heard of, one Bhabuk Garurel. 

He needs to get out more and realise the reality of where he is, and it ain’t 2026 newly developed urban Sydney.  Council’s letter represents some imagined rule out-of-the-blue threatening to destroy our bush verge.  It avoids any prior consultation or explanation by some desk jockey up in Council’s highrise brutalist taj mahal remote from the town community.

This is a shock after 26 years here with no issue.  So I phone back this character, Bhabuk Garurel, a Nepalese name as it turns out and I leave a few messages for him to call me back!   He does so and claims the matter is a Council initiated inspection.  But this proves false when I then speak with his manager Nicole Hume, who says someone (anonymous) has apparently complained.   So the truth emerges.

Here we reside in the oldest heritage residential area of the Blue Mountains.  The North’s Estate streetscape is over 150 years old, like from the 1870s. 

 

Outside our place there’s the previously shown electrical telegraph pole planted in the footpath obstructing pedestrian access and it has been there for decades and frankly we dont have a problem with that; it’s long a Mountains thing.

We have not ignored this unjustified impost and threat, and have since lodged a formal complaint and we’ll fight this politically, publically and indeed legally if needed.  Council’s CSR is 662 939 – for whatever that means.

We have since responded to Council bureaucracy on this matter not only three times by phone, but now in writing as follows (and we’ve only just started!):

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15^th May 2026

 

Attention:  Bhabuk Gajurel
Programme Leader – Inspections and Maintenance
Transport and Public Access
Blue Mountains Council

 

RE:  Subject: Pedestrian Hazard – XX XXXXXXX St, Katoomba NSW 2780

 

1. I acknowledge receipt of your hardcopy 3-page letter dated 8^th May 2026 received in our letterbox to us at XX XXXXXXXXXX Street Katoomba on Tuesday 12^th May 2026;
2. I attach a scanned copy of that letter for your reference;
3. I reject Council’s claims and demands in that letter utterly, thus we are in dispute with Council in this matter;
4. The photos you attach which are in colour and have a edited colour shading, show that the verge vegetation does not obstruct pedestrian access, save for one May bush;
5. The imbedded text on the bottom right of each phone lists the incorrect address across the street.  Was this an act of AI and that of an ignorant Council staffer desk jockey?;
6. Why has Council chosen not to contact us to discuss rather than issue an ultimatum with costs.  Do you want us to take legal action against Council?  Is this how you treat residents?;
7. Safety warning:  If Council were to trim that May bush back to the western edge of the footpath, it would reveal the sharp small horizontal branches of the bush within and this would pose a public safety risk;
8. I request you, Bhabuk Gajurel, and your manager Nicole Hume, make time to personally inspect this verge onsite at a mutually suitable time so we can discuss options and the unique rural locale.  This is not urban wheelchair-friendly Sydney, from which you may emanate.  This is not concrete and treeless modern urban downtown Pyrmont.  We are in the rural Blue Mountains and it ain’t no city!;
9. Please observe that this particular residential street has its footpaths and verges along both sides of the street in reverse juxtaposition to modern streets, that is the verge butts up again the residential properties and the footpaths are adjacent to the gutter of the street;
10. The street dates back to the 1870s.  It is an historical part of North’s Estate and is conservation heritage listed.  This century old residential/bushland precinct area is not 21^st Century Pyrmont with its best practice streetscape compliance to suit disabled pedestrian access.  So get real!;
11. Have you any knowledge of the conservation heritage listing of North’s Estate of the 1870s here?  Have you ever heard of North’s Estate Heritage Conservation Area (Local ID: K171)?  It holds both local and State significance!  Do you have any qualifications or training or experience in conservation heritage areas?  The following newspaper advertisement dates to 1883, not 1983!;
12. Council’s photographed tea-tree on the verge diagonal branches allows for clear passage for pedestrians of a 6’ height.  Yet 7’ dudes may have to duck a bit.  Acknowledged, it is not perfect, but if you care to inspect closely onsite away from you Council desk, you will note evidence of our pruning of this tree over the decades.  It actually was a lot worse and so we have regularly trimmed it since we do respect the right of passage of pedestrians along the footpath;
13. In your letter, your claim that the verge vegetation is “obstructing pedestrian passage” is false and misleading, save for that May bush;
14. In your letter, your claim that “wheelchair use of the footpath” is required is absurd.  You are being hypocritical here because you conveniently are ignoring “the elephant in the room” – the three telegraph poles on our side of this short street have for many decades been planted in the footpath.  So how do you suggest a wheelchair avoids these poles?  If you want to destroy our verge then remove the poles so you achieve wheelchair access perfection for your nominal and unsubstantiated 1.2m (W) x 2m (H) parameter wheelchair access idyllic bliss!;
15. But hey, I have only just started.  A short walk around this old rural precinct will reveal to the newcomer that actually Kundibar Street is one of the better served for pedestrians.  Many streets have no bloody footpath at all.  So why target us?  Are we to be a precedent for Council’s heritage destruction of this 1870s Norths Estate by some city-slicker Council envisaging some urban pristine wheelchair-friendly paradise in its imagined “City within a World Heritage Area”?;
16. In your letter, your claim that we are “creating a safety hazard for pedestrians” is false and misleading.  There are no trip hazards on the footpath outside our property.  Indeed you can observe evidence of the concrete repairs that I have made to the old gutter and to around the electrical telegraph pole situated directly in front of our place in the footpath itself!  Compare this with the broken footpath next door that Council has ignored for years.  It indeed poses an ongoing trip hazard for pedestrians, yet all Council has done is spray white paint to alert pedestrians;
17. In your letter, you claim and seek to justify that “in this regard, Council owes a duty of care to ensure the safety of pedestrians on Council’s Footpaths.”   Seriously, take a walk around our immediate residential precinct (and many areas of the Blue Mountains dude!)   It is a celebrating in Council’s systemic and chronic neglect of streetscape maintenance and amenity.  But frankly in this neck of the woods we rather like it to be a bit rural and rough and ready.  We don’t want to be a suburb plush with thousands of concrete footpaths on every street side;
18. I will not trim anything without Council’s prior written agreement to the extent of that trimming and with Council’s authorised senior representative as an onsite witness.  Video footage will be done for public dissemination.  I am flexible to reasonable trimming, but not to wanton unsupervised destruction by outsourced non-Council contractors. They might cop a sprinkler or two;
19. Any destruction of our verge vegetation will incur a cost penalty to Council by invoice to replace same. That cost will likely be more than Council’s bullying threatened charge for it to “proceed with the necessary work , and you may be invoiced for the work carried out.”

 

I do not tolerate threats.

 

Yours faithfully,

Steven Ridd
Property Owner

 

 

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Attached relevant photos of the North’s Estate:

 

Meanwhile, for those unfamiliar with Inner West Katoomba’s heritage listed North’s Estate, check out Council’s hypocrisy and streatscape neglect of it… (all our photos)…

 

 

 

 

And a street away, this century old wall has long been neglected by Council.  What’s new?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whilst Metromix was supplying the concrete for Council’s unnecessary footpath upgrade (costing how many ratepayer thousands?) the Metromix cement mixer driver managed to destroy a safety barrier close by up the same Warriga Street. 

Warriga Street Katoomba – crash barrier damaged CSR 291786:   Quote from one’s email to Council of 2nd August 2019: 

“Attached are photos of the crash barrier damage on Warriga Street, which occurred today between 11am and 12:30.  The road is unsafe.  There are  two or three steel vertical posts that have been dislodged.”

 

 

Surprise surprise, Metromix then got the plumb job of supplying truck loads of concrete for Council’s new fangled concrete island replacement.  Check this photo of 6th August 2021 out…

 

 

But that’s Blue Mountains {city} Council for you.  Worst council in Australia.  Council’s Motto:  “A Sydney city envy converting Blue Mountains heritage – natural, historical, everything!”

 

 

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References:

 

[1]   North’s Estate, ^

 

[2]    

 

 

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References:

 

[1]   ‘North’s Estate Heritage Conservation Area‘, Blue Mountains Council, 

 

[2]   ‘Period Housing Conversion to Heritage Conservation Area‘,  NSW Government, 2019