The Habitat Advocate

Threatened demise of Wildplant Rescue: no thanks to Blue Mountains Council hypocrisy

The Habitat Advocate has sadly learned about a governmental threat to evict a much valued local community volunteer-run nursery business in Katoomba, operating since before 1999.

We learned about this from the grapevine, else we would have otherwise known about this news development from the local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper. However, that valued weekly newspaper informing locals about Blue Mountains goings-on has been denied us for some years, since it has not been distributed to our area since long before COVID. So, unknown knowns?

We note the newspaper’s distribution statistics have been removed from this newspaper’s print masthead for some time (see below) – a harbinger of pending closure?

So, a few weeks back a Blue Mountains friend informed us about this news of the nursery, then kindly dropped around his copy of the Gazette issue dated Wednesday 15th January 2025. This is the front page with the legendary Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue Service (‘Wildplant Rescue’) on the front page:

[SOURCE: Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper page 1, Wednesday 15th January 2015]

This is the news story accompanying on pages 1 and 12:

‘Eviction day looms for Wildplant Rescue nursery

January 15 2025 , by Jennie Curtin

Time is running out for the Wildplant Rescue nursery at Katoomba.

The volunteers have been told they have until the end of April to find a new home, after the owner, the NSW Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ), cited maintenance costs and fire safety issues. (Editor: aka the landlord’s wanton neglect of this bushland site for decades, and a rubbish slack ulterior motive excuse to flog off the site for profit to a developer for housing – truth telling!)

The department wants to sell the site, which used to be the Clairvaux Children’s Home, and which is in need of major repairs. [Editor: Neglected by government for decades such that that particular abandoned and vandalised building warrants demolition – think the comparable Renaissance Centre near council chambers]

The cost of setting up elsewhere is beyond the means of the volunteer-run nursery, which rescues local native species from building sites and propagates them as well as other rare and difficult natives.

It sells the plants to home gardeners as well as council, landscapers and Bushcare organisations, providing the income to keep going.

The volunteers are desperately hoping the department changes its mind and gives them a permanent lease on their small section of the site.

The only alternative, said president Verity Harris, is to find a benefactor with deep pockets.

“If there’s a good millionaire out there with a plot of land …” she said hopefully.

The group had talks with council about a possible site during the planning of the old Katoomba golf course precinct. But a spokeswoman for council said “a plant nursery is not a permissible use on this site under the current zoning, and an amendment to the LEP would be required to include this and other additional uses. That would be a lengthy process including making a submission to the state government and further public consultation.”

The DCJ said it recognised the important service the nursery provides in protecting threatened species but a land condition audit of the site in 2020 found that it was not fit for purpose and was not safe for long-term use because of its fire zone.

“Tenants of the site were notified of the need to vacate the site in 2021 and since then almost all have relocated,” a spokeswoman said. “DCJ has not provided formal notification to the nursery to leave the site whilst we continue to assist them to find a new home.”

The nursery has operated at the site since 1998. Although it receives no funding, Ms Harris acknowledged that DCJ did not charge them for rent or for water and electricity.

One of the difficulties with an unknown future is that no forward decisions can be made. The group recently spent money on new benches for the plants but don’t want to install them in case they have to take them down. There is also a greenhouse which is lying unassembled for the same reason.

“The uncertainty is really quite crippling,” Ms Harris said.

Volunteer Frances Scarano said the group only propagates native plants from the Mountains to ensure genetic purity.

“We extend the diversity” of plants grown in Mountains gardens as well as giving wildlife more food and shelter sources,” she said.’

The above news item conveys more than a harbinger of pending closure; it threatens unjustified eviction of this reliable and much valued long-term community volunteer-run business tenant.

This is yet another example of the NSW Government’s bureaucratic ongoing anti-social culture of destroying local small businesses for the greed of selling off public land (native bushland) that it controls on a entrusted custodial basis on behalf of the community. This eviction threat is bureaucracy selfishly seeking to profit from more bushland asset sales for inevitable housing development. It is not good government.

This closure threat to this unique endemic native plant nursery is unnecessary, unfair, contrary to the departmental landlord (DCJ’s) community focuses, and down right politically motivated by the incumbent NSW Minns Government bureaucracy and his politicians. The NSW Government’s eviction threat is wrong and unjustifiable.

Relevant Background

Let the truth be known…

The founder of The Habitat Advocate and Editor of this website, Steven Ridd, is a local of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains since 2001, so far being here 24 years.

Consistent with the conservation tenets of The Habitat Advocate organisation, Steven has been an active member of Wildplant Rescue, situated at 14 oak Street Katoomba, on and off since 2009, having first initiating contact with committee member Alison Hatfield in April 2028. Steven’s association included volunteering in various capacities and then joining the management committee. It was an on-and-off as work and family priorities permitted such volunteering contributions, as many juggle with.

Back on Thursday 26^th February 2009, Steven attended his first meeting of Wildplant Rescue’s Management Committee Meeting, as a guest. Minutes of the Management Committee Meeting of Thursday 26^th February 2009. It is a community group and nothing herein is personally private, but only about this community-based not-for-profit organisation. It’s website is appropriately in the public domain.

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Steven remained a member on and off for more than a decade.

However, Steven’s association with Wildplant Rescue abruptly ended upon his initiated email letter of membership resignation from Wildplant Rescue to the committee on 1st July 2020 . The reasons are twofold.

Previously, on 24 June 2020, Steven, being on the Wildplant Management Committee had responded in an email to the committee thus:

“EVICTION THREAT

Importantly as well, Wildplant Management Committee needs to immediately respond to the notification of the imminent threat of eviction from its ‘lease’ at Clairvaux Community Centre 14 Oak Street Katoomba as warned by the NSW Department of Community & Justice (so-called) on 7^th May 2020, per Verity’s email.

It would be responsible to inform the membership of this threat ASAP.

Kind regards,

Steven”

However, the management committee decided not to “broadcast’ the situation either to the members or to the general public.. until they had more definite information from the DCJ.”

On 26th June 2020, Steven added in another email to the management committee:

“I re-emphasise that waiting for a governmental department formal response in writing may just well be an eviction notice.

This will place Wildplant Rescue in an invidious position with little wriggle room to negotiate or to seek a delay to consider options.

I have recommended to the Wildplant Committee then need to seek legal advice and to utilise the current government grant funding to finance such legal advice so as to be on the front foot, rather than waiting for the inevitable so to speak.

I do not see a reason for keeping this critical news from the Wildplant membership, who may well be able to assist the Committee somehow, or at least given an opportunity to do so.

As volunteer representatives of Wildplant Rescue, the committee should not feel compelled to take on this burden of the threat of eviction themselves and with it the likely folding of Wildplant with it, given no alternative site has been so far found viable. I wish to add…as a committee member my dissent in not informing the membership of this predicament. They would be shocked to learn and if it were to eventuate without their knowledge, hold the committee to account and condemnation. I am prepared to be a whistle-blower on this to the membership by July 14. Surely the committee can come up with a responsible announcement to the membership that is informative without being alarmist.

I have the future viability of the Wildplant organisation and spirit foremost in my mind; whereas committee members can come and go.”

Waiting for government…

On 27th June 2020, Steven emailed his broadcast email to the 66 active members of Wildplant Rescue thus:

“Hello Wildplant Membership,

As a current voluntary member of Blue Mountain Wildplant Rescue Service and serving on the management committee, I wish to express my repeated concerns since receiving an email from the President on May 8^th 2020 about a serious risk to the viability of our organisation. I have tried my darndest multiple times within the committee communication that the broader Wildplant membership be made aware of this situation, but I have been unsuccessful, and only accused of “bullying” by the President, which I totally reject.

I refer you to the President of Wildplant Committee to explain.
My commitment and heart is with the conservation spirit and viability of Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue Service Inc.”

Sincerely,
Steven Ridd”

After then receiving a threatening email response from the president alleging “data breach” from Steven’s broadcast emailing to members, Steven emailed the committee on 1^st July 2020 that he would not be renewing his membership. (Full email correspondences is retained)

So that episode is approaching five years ago now. Yet sadly, the same threat of governmental eviction by the same NSW Department of Communities and Justice still looms dark over Wildplant Rescue’s very existence.

Then in 2022, after the Blue Mountains Council had purchased the adjacent defunct Katoomba Golf Clubhouse situated on 30 hectares of public land (long controlled by Council), Council decided to re-branded it a ‘Centre for Planetary Health’, whatever that means.

Council had over previous decades, owned the public land of the Katoomba Golf Course, in its entrusted capacity as a custodian on behalf of the public. But the various golf course club operators had gone bankrupt and ‘sympathetically connected’ councillors had bailed them out using ratepayer funds. Say no more.

During the time of 2022, as part of Council’s community consultation outreach invitation, Steven responded to Council in writing proposing that a small portion (1/2 hectare) of the old golf course site be considered by Council allocated to Wildplant Rescue’s nursery, given the imminent threat of the nursery’s eviction from its current site. The current nursery site directly across the street from the old golf course at 14 Oak Street covers about that size.

This relocation literally just across the street, would be the most convenient option for Wildplant Rescue out of other flagged site options considered, if eviction became imminent and unavoidable. Other considered options had been Planet Ark’s former site in Wentworth Falls (north side) off 321 Blaxland Road and the original proposed site for the nursery at the old and disused Blackheath Tip (2 hectare) site off Ridgewell Road, situated about 600 metres along the road from the Great Western Highway, east of the locked road gate.