We herein enclose a complete copy of Blue Mountains {city} Council’s 2004 Plan of Management for Upper Kedumba River Valley, which we term The Gully Water Catchment.  It was formerly gazetted by Council as Katoomba Falls Creek Valley for decades prior to its unilateral renaming by Council in 1995. 

 

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[Editor’s note:  We reject the urban assertion by Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) councillors that the Blue Mountains could or should be in any way labelled as a “city” as if comparable with Sydney.  So we choose to place the word {city} in BMCC’s title in brackets.] 

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The  Gully Water Catchment lies on the western edge of the regional township of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains region, located 100km due west of Sydney’s CBD. 

The Valley takes that shape of an elongated valley from a natural amphitheatre in the north southward and features various natural riparian zones around watercourses that confluence into a central creek across this section of the Blue Mountains plateau to Katoomba Falls. 

 

The Gully Water Catchment is situated on the Blue Mountains central plateau and covers (290 hectares/2.9 km²) and lies wholly within the watershed ridgeline of Bathurst Road to the north, meandering along the watershed through central Katoomba to the east, the ridgeline along Valley Road to the Jamison clifftop escarpment to the west, and to Katoomba Falls to the south.

The water plunges into the Kedumba River into the Jamison Valley 300m below the Blue Mountains plateau which then flows downstream for about 50km to the artificial Lake Burragorang above Warragamba Dam. 

This dam was built in post-WWII from 1948-1960 to provided a fresh water reservoir for an ever-growing Greater Sydney for it’s primary drinking water.  Before the construction of the dam, Burragorang Valley had been inhabited by white settlers since the 19th century, and for thousands of years before, the Burragorang valley was part of the tribal lands of the Gundungurra Aboriginal people, who became displaced local Aboriginal refugees in their own country. 

In 1948 some fled to squat in the small valley they were familiar and had family connections with, situated about 40 km to the north they nicknamed The Gully on the edge of Katoomba.

 

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley was unilaterally renamed by Blue Mountains {city} Council in its wisdom around 1995 to being renamed ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley‘.  

Why the name change?   Well, from experience in dealing with Blue Mountains {city} Council in relation to this valley (2002-2007) one suspects that it was part of Council’s relentless ‘divide and conquer strategy’ to undermine then in 1996, what had been a decade long struggle by local resident group Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (The Friends) to save and protect The Valley from ongoing threats of destructive harm and neglect and to seek a joint co-operative land management between the interested local community and Blue Mountains {city} Council.  

The Valley includes the Aboriginal Place (AP) affectionately known by former residents as ‘The Gully’.  They were a mix of poor folk, a few dozen or so, who subsisted on the edge of town either renting or squatting in very basic shack-style homes.  That is until Blue Mountains {city} Council back in 1957 decided to forcibly evict them all and bulldoze their dwellings to build a motor racing track for an elitist wealthy motor racing fraternity.  For many years this northern part of The Valley used to be called Frank Walford Park, after a previous Council mayor.  

Subsequently over the years since, Blue Mountains {city} Council has incrementally sold off numerous land parcels to private housing development so as to boost its revenue base.   The remnant bushland sections are gazetted as ‘Community Land’ under the New South Wales Local Government Act 1993.   

Despite The Valley naturally being a riparian zone (mostly wetland) of the creek and its various headwater streams, the community land have become quite separated as Council has unilaterally re-zoned various land parcels on paper from being ‘Community Land‘ to ‘Operational Land‘, invariably in preparation to be flogged off for housing.  History records many land sales by Blue Mountains {city} Council throughout The Valley sold by either for private housing, Katoomba Sports and Aquatic Centre and for what is called South Katoomba Rural Fire Service Station.   

Beneath the surface, Council dug up the wetland and installed a massive sewer network.

 

Council’s 2004 Plan of Management (POM) for The Gully

 

Council had this 2004 POM document initially compiled in draft form in October 2002 by external consultancy, Environmental Partnership, which is off-Mountains based in distant Ultimo in central Sydney.  These dudes do urban landscapes, not natural landscapes – so were they an appropriate choice by council?  Well, it depends upon the outcomes council wanted to The Gully plan of management back then.  Council filed it anyway.

The POM draft was subsequently revised over a two year period and the final document has the rather lengthy bureaucratic title thus: ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within  “The Gully” Aboriginal Place’ (Revised Edition 2004).

Ok, so the names were evolving and former council mayor Frank Walford, who supported the racetrack usurpation of 1957, and by 2004 was getting out of favour with council due to expressed criticism of his namesake in The Gully by the former residents of The Gully.  We note that council’s sky blue coloured ‘The Frank Walford Park’ sign also suddenly disappeared in recent years.

So the ‘subject lands’ exclusively described as ‘“The Gully” Aboriginal Place’ are shown in this map on page 6.

 

This 2004 iteration stipulates three separate plans of management, one for each of the geographic public land sections of The Valley.  It excludes the sizeable western side of The Valley referred to as Katoomba Golf Course – which was and still is public land owned by Blue Mountains {city} Council.  It also excludes the watercourse and riparian zone to the west between Wellington Street and Stuarts Road in Katoomba, which is at the time was private pastoral land addressed as 21 Stuarts Road.

The public (Community Land) sections of The Valley included in the document, form a natural riparian corridor along Katoomba Falls Creek, they being:

1. Frank Walford Park (comprising the northern headwaters of Katoomba Falls Creek)
2. McRae’s Paddock (comprising the main centre section of Katoomba Falls Creek)
3. Selby Street Reserve (comprising a eastern side tributary to Katoomba Falls Creek which confluences with Katoomba Falls Creek at Maple Grove Park, as well as the sports ovals and the escarpment top riparian zone to the top of Katoomba Falls)

 

In addition on page 39 of the 2004 Plan of Management there is a 35-point Stormwater Plan for The (entire) Valley.

 

Council’s Legacy of Planned Inaction for The Valley 

 

These 2004 plans of management (x3) along with the Stormwater Plan were never acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council.   This is despite the considerable cost of all the research and compilation of preparing the 2004 plans over more than two years, which likely exceeding $100,000. 

These plans follow a series of similar plans compiled for this creek valley, which we have on file are:

1. (no date) Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study A & B
2. (no date) Frank Walford Park – Bushland Management and Report
3. 1955: Frank Walford Park Master Plan for Development, 1955 (car racetrack), by Katoomba Municipal Council (Ed: better name)
4. c.1980: Draft Assessment of Frank Walford Park, Katoomba – Land Suitability, Environmental Constraints
5. 1981: Frank Walford Park Management Plan, by BMCC, 54  pages
6. June 1993: Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study – Part 1 Draft Report and Management Plan by F.& J. Bell & Associates, for BMCC, 85 pages
7. June 1993: Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study – Part 2 Technical Reporrts, Data and Analysis by F.& J. Bell & Associates, for BMCC, 55 pages
8. April 1996: Katoomba Falls Creek Valley – Draft Pan of Management and Report, by Connell Wagner Pty Ltd (consultancy), (for BMCC) approx. 200 pages (inconsistently numbered)
9. 3rd July 2000: Upper Kedumba Valley, Katoomba – Report on Cultural Significance…, (for NPWS) by Dianne Johnson with Dawn Colless, 162 pages
10. 2001:  Area 2 Community Plan (including Katoomba) by Area Community Planning, BMCC, 102 pages
11. 2001:  Area 2 Sport and Recreation Plan (including Katoomba) by Area Community Planning, BMCC, 107 pages
12. 2004: Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within  “The Gully” Aboriginal Place (Revised Edition 2004), by Environment Partnership (consultancy) for BMCC, 105 pages
13. August 2005: A Heritage Study of the Gully Aboriginal Place, Katoomba, New South Wales by Allan Lance of heritage Consulting Australia Pty Ltd & NSW Dept Environment and Heritage (for BMCC), 113 pages
14. March 2005: Catchment 7 Improvement Grant No.44 Upper Kedumba River Valley, by members of Kedumba Creek Bushcare & BMCC  – Final Report for Sydney Catchment Authority, 27 pages
15. June 2006: Hawkesbury Nepean River Health Strategy Volume 1, by Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority, 78 pages
16. June 2006: Hawkesbury Nepean River Health Strategy Volume 2, by Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority, 144 pages
17. June 2019: The Gully – Stakeholder Engagement Report (June 2019), 44 pages
18. 29th September 2021:  Proposed Recategorisation of Parts of the Gully Aboriginal Place, Katoomba – Public Hearing and Submissions Final Report, by Parkland Planners for BMCC, 56 pages
19. 4th October  2021:  The Gully Aboriginal Place Plan of Management, by BMCC, 145 pages.

 

Not one of the plans above for The Valley has been acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council to date since that of 1981. This is disingenous and shameful.   It is no wonder that The Friends [1989-2016] became exasperated with Blue Mountains {city} Council and it’s ‘all-talk-no-action‘ recalcitrance on The Valley over the years.

It noteworthy that the chambers  of Blue Mountains {city} Council is situated just 200 metres from the eastern ridge top  of The Valley’s northern amphitheatre as the crow flies – so close geographically, yet shunned.  It seems that since time immemorial nothing’s changed from the time The Valley (Gully) community of struggling ‘have nots’ (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike) on this edge of town were shunned by the ‘haves’ uphill of Katoomba and nearby villages.

One would not be surprised if the combined cost of Blue Mountains {city} Council’s compiling of all these plans and reports on The Valley exceeds a million dollars.  The funding came from local ratepayers else from grant moneys received from the New South Wales Government.  Indeed, one would not be surprised if once each plan was finalised, that Council instantly filed it to gather dust on an archival shelf, such is one’s experience as a former member of the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.

Copies of the above plans and reports over time we shall publish in The Gully Collection on this website, available for free download and printing to the general public.  Access to the ‘The Gully Collection’ is by clicking on The Gully Collection’ photo image on the front page of this website.

 

Stipulated Plans of Management for Council Community Lands

 

Under Section 36, of the New South Wales Local Government Act 1993,  each local government (local council) throughout New South Wales is legally required to prepare a plan of management for a Community Land area under Council ownership.  This means that in the case of the Blue Mountains {city} Council, it is compelled to draft plans of management for each community land area and update these plans from time to time, including the community land within Upper Kedumba River Valley. 

Under  Section 36 of the Act: 

1. “A council must prepare a draft plan of management for community land.
2. A draft plan of management may apply to one or more areas of community land, except as provided by this Division.
3. A plan of management for community land must identify the following:
   (a) the category of the land,
   (b) the objectives and performance targets of the plan with respect to the land,
   (c) the means by which the council proposes to achieve the plan’s objectives and performance targets,
   (d) the manner in which the council proposes to assess its performance with respect to the plan’s objectives and performance targets, and may require the prior approval of the council to the carrying out of any specified activity on the land.”

 

The New South Wales Local Government Act 1993 in fact superseded previous local government Acts that date back to 1919.   So the above list where it refers to a plan of management, likely similarly was a required document under the NSW legislation.  So the plans of management prepared for Blue Mountains {city} Council have always been mandatory, rather than being some noble gesture by Blue Mountains {city} Council seen to be doing the right civil thing for the local community.

In addition, in the case of selected surviving remnant bushland sections of community land connected with local Aboriginal cultural heritage within the Upper Kedumba River Valley, since 18th May 2002,  ‘The Gully’ was declared an Aboriginal Place (AP) by Blue Mountains {city} Council and the NSW Parks Service under Section 84 of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (NSW) No 80.  

Under Section 72 of National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 No 80 ’72 Preparation of plans of management’  “The Secretary..  (d) may from time to time cause a plan of management to be prepared for any Aboriginal area or wildlife refuge.”

 

2004 Action Plans not acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council

 

The stipulated Action Plans of the Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management of 2004 were not acted upon by Blue Mountains {city} Council in the intervening seventeen years between 2004 and the current 2021 Plan. 

Refer to the supplied copy of the document below – both the Action Table (pages 69-74) and Appendix B (pages 83-94).  Council senior management will respond excusing lack of external grant funding (usually from the New South Wales Government), but then they won’t be able to provide any evidence of applying for such funding. 

Council simply doesn’t care.  It only prepares plans of management because it is legally required to do so under Section 36, of the New South Wales Local Government Act 1993 and also under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 No 80.

Under the latter, Section 79A ‘Lapsing of plans of management‘ stipulates: 

“(1)  A plan of management for lands reserved under Part 4A expires on the tenth anniversary of the date on which it was adopted unless it is sooner cancelled under this Part.

(2)  Not less than 6 months before a plan of management expires, the board of management for the lands concerned must prepare a new plan of management to replace it.

(3)  The board of management is to have regard to a plan of management that has expired until the new plan of management comes into effect.”

 

Blue Mountains {city} Council delayed its review of its 2004 Plan some seventeen years.  Not including the NSW bushfire emergency declarations of 2019 and the Coronavirus Pandemic 2020-2021, council’s review process was still an inexcusable five-year delay between the due scheduled review in 2014 and when council initiated community engagement from 4th September 2018. 

This is evidencial from Blue Mountains {city} Council’s Stakeholder Engagement Report concerning The Gully dated June 2019, page 7 extract as follows: 

 

The image below is the Stormwater Plan for The Valley as part of the 2004 Plan of Management for The Valley on page 39.  There are some 35 specific actions identified, explained and specifically geo-located on the map.   The clarity of the image is regrettably poor and almost impossible to read.  It has been sourced from the 2004 Plan of Management on Blue Mountains {city} Council’s website concerning the 2021 POM; perhaps the poor clarify of the image was intentional?

 

Council failed to act on any of the 35 recommended actions of the Stormwater Plan.

Council failed to act on any of the recommended actions of the Bush Regeneration Plan.  The only work carried out in The Valley was the ongoing weeding by local residents associated with the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley bushcare groups.  One group focused on the Frank Walford Park area, another along Selby Street Reserve and a third in MacRae’s Paddock.

There was supposed to be stream restoration works, a Heritage Management Plan, native re-vegetation, macrophytle planting around Horace Gates’ artificial lake, removal of the derelict toilet blocks, contruction of a heritage centre and installation of picnic shelters.  There was to be a paid re-vegetation coordinator supported by some 20 trainee staff.  None of that happened.  These are all listed in a Action Plan Table in Section 8.2 of the 2004 Plan of Management from page 71 to 74. 

Unbelievably, the total budgeted cost of Blue Mountains {city} Council’s wish list for the entire ‘Masterplan‘ for The Valley came in at a staggering pie-in- the-sky $4,682,000! 

The funding for all this was supposed to be gleamed from grants from various departments of the New South Wales Government such as the NSW Department of Conservations and Land Management, the NSW Heritage Office and somehow from from State Treasury, in theory. 

That didn’t happen because Council didn’t actually apply for any grant funding for these listed projects.

 

So what did Council actually manage to do for The Valley over these 17 years (2004-2021) ? 

Funding that was secured between the 2004 Plan and the 2021 Plan was from a joint Aboriginal grant between The Gully Traditional Owners (Gundungurra) and  the Widjabul traditional custodians the Wilson River region near Lismore in the northern rivers region of New South Wales.  A grant of $600,000 was obtained through partnership with Rous Water and Sustainable Futures Australia as part of the Aboriginal ‘Reconnecting to Country‘ project.  The funding was used to construct a boardwalk and interpretative Aboriginal signage in the northern (formerly Frank Walford Park) section of The Gully. 

Also,  a small section of the Catalina Racetrack sleeper fencing was removed near Catalina Lake as a symbolic gesture of finally ending the motor racing usurpation of The Valley since 1957. 

Since The Gully was declared an Aboriginal Place on 18th May 2002, motorised use of the track was prohibited by Blue Mountains Council.   This ending of the racing era in The Valley came about mainly through the conserted campaigning by local resident activist group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley from 1989 to end the racing and the noise.  Others wish to claim the credit.

However, occasional mischievous motorised access persisted from time to time for a few years.  The steel gate was illegally towed out of its concrete base near the South Katoomba Rural Fire Station in order for someone to gain vehicle access to the old race track.  A second steel gate was also illegally removed nearby the Aquatic Centre to gain vehicular access to the track.   The odd trail bike and mini bikes were observed by this author illegally racing as recently as December 2005. 

During this period , a coppice of willow trees were professionally removed from inside the racetrack, near the disused toilet block.  An Aboriginal Liaison Officer, Reg Yates, was employed by Blue Mountains {city} Council for a short time in around 2006.  The Council-owned cottage at 23 Gates Avenue was donated to newly formed Gully Traditional Owners, after the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institiute (BMWHI) relocated.   The building is occasionally used currently as an office, and meeting place for Gundungurra use.  A small art gallery was constructed adjacent.  As a local resident, this author usually observes that most of the time the premises are closed and all the window blinds are pulled down.

 

At the end of 2011, Blue Mountains {city} Council in partnership with NSW Landcare established a volunteer-based Garguree Swampcare group tasked to rehabilitate the riparian swamp/wetland areas from weed infestations inside The Gully, as well as re-landscaping and planting out locally native vegetation.  The name ‘Garguree’ means ‘gully’ in Gundungurra language, apparently according to local historian Jim Smith Ph.D.

 

We enclose below a complete copy of the final revised Plan of Management of 2004 in Adobe Acrobat .PDF format below.  Being a publicly funded community document wholly concerning community land, this document below is freely available  to the public for download and printing. 

 

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The Habitat Advocate’s raison d’être

 

Habitat Campaigning best starts close to home.   If everyone took this approach then the natural environment would be far more intact, the wildlife habitat more viable to sustain local wildlife, and the risk of species extinction far lower than where current trends are heading.

The Habitat Advocate established as a volunteer conservation group back in 2001 on the edge of a small steep creek valley within what we term The Gully Water Catchment based at The Habitat Advocate founder’s residential home on the bushland fringe of the regional township of Katoomba, situated in the central Upper Blue Mountains of New South Wales in Australia. 

The reference to this creek valley as ‘The Gully‘ is the historical affection name for the valley by former resident tenants.

Our raison d’être (purpose in forming) initiated on one Saturday morning within a few weeks of the founder, Steven, moving into his recently acquired house and suddenly being impacted by the roar of racing Mini Cooper cars down in the creek valley less than 100 metres away.  Having had all due diligence in conveyancing previously undertaken ahead of purchasing the property and the previous tenant advising how quite the area was, no mention had been made of the deafening motor racing circuit!  Local Blue Mountains [city} Council (local council) maps had labelled the small surrounding valley as ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley‘, with the northern portion near our house named by Council as ‘Frank Walford Park‘, but NOT as ‘Catalina Park‘ motor racing circuit.

So that was it, the battle to end the motor racing commenced. 

Steven soon learned about a local grassroots activist group of residents living around the edge of this creek valley, which had formed back in 1989 initially and primarily to end the car racing use of the valley and also to respect and rehabilitate the creek valley’s natural ecology.  Steven joined them in 2002 – ‘The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.‘ (‘The Friends’), led by the now late Neil Stuart [1937-2016]. 

Between 2002 and 2007, Steven volunteered in The Friends working group’s activities – lobbying local council to end the racing, participating in community meetings about the valley, meeting with former residents of ‘The Gully’ (mostly Aboriginal), writing letters in the local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, undertaking bushcare weeding and rubbish clean ups in the valley, and generally monitoring and reporting unsavoury goings such as illegal squatting by transient outsiders.

During those early years, The Friends learned about the tragic history of the creek valley’s 1957 forced eviction of former tenants by Council and its bulldozing of their homes so that the racetrack could be constructed.  The former tenants had referred to the creek valley as The Gully – mainly the northern portion of what Council had named Frank Walford Park after one of its mayors of the 1950s who had approved the racetrack usurpation* of the land previously known by former residents as The Gully.  A number of members of The Friends were indeed former residents of the valley – Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal, as well as intermixed local families.

[Ed: *Usurpation is the act of taking somebody’s position and/or power without having the right to do this.  Land Usurpation is the appropriation of land from the previous or lawful owner].

 

In 1995, local council had renamed ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley‘ to being ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley‘.  In around 2007, The Gully Traditional Owners decided to rename The Gully as ‘Gungaree’ in Gundungurra aboriginal language acccording to historical doctoral research undertaken by Wentworth Falls historian Jim Smith, Ph.D.

Around the time from 2000 to 2002, as chance would have it, there occurred an environmentalist momentum in the area, followed by a local social momentum that firstly had the Blue Mountains region internationally recognised as a natural World Heritage area on Thursday 30th November 2000.  Secondly, portions of the valley became recognised and declared by the New South Wales Government as an Aboriginal Place under its National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 on 18th May 2002.  That declaration resulted in local council terminating the car racing in the valley. 

So job done!  It was certainly a changeable time, and Steven just happened to have arrived from Sydney, originally Melbourne.

By 2007, despite tirelsss efforts of The Friends since forming back in 1989 to persuade local council (as the legal owner of the valley) to end the racing and to consult with interested local residents around the valley and about managing a natural rehabilitation process for the valley, that was not to be. 

Instead, council bureaucracy over the years systematically thwarted all attempts by The Friends, and The Friends’ allied collaborated group The Gully Guardians (2004-2006) from having any say in joint community consultation and rehabilitation management of the valley.  In fact, due to the years of  The Friends demands upon local council to consult in rehabilitate the valley and The Friends’ relentless and strident criticism of local council (whilst valid in this author’s view), local council went further. 

By 2007, local council had completely ostracised The Friends from all community consultation concerning the valley and had bureaucratically driven a by-law wedge between The Friends and the local Aboriginal people who had been former residents of the valley before 1957. 

By 2007, local council had chosen to side solely with the newly formed Gundungurra Aboriginal group, The Gully Traditional Owners, in an exclusive management partnership for the valley.   From local council’s bureacuratic standpoint The Friends had effectively become personae non gratae. 

It wass in this year, that Steven sadly decided to resign from The Friends and focus his environmentaliost attention upon building the website of the Habitat Advocate. 

All the while and since then, Steven has continued to maintain close good friendship and communication with members of The Friends. 

 

The Gully Water Catchment?

 

In the upper Blue Mountains, a creek and series of wetlands following the upper reaches of the Upper Kedumba River above Katoomba Falls form an elongated upland valley covering an area of more than 100 hectares.  This creek valley has been known for many decades by its former residents and their descendants affectionately as ‘The Gully’.  Over more than a century since the 1870s, this natural valley was steadily deforested and around the fringes subdivided for housing so that the remnant natural area has been reduced to under 70 hectares..

Situated next to the township of Katoomba, The Gully has long been surrounded by housing development above it atop its steep valley embankments.  Yet, The Gully held  important ancestral cultural values to traditional Aboriginal peoples of the Gundungurra, Darug, Wanaruah, Wiradjuri, Darkinjung and Tharawal of the greater Blue Mountains region and adjoining lands.  These values contimue to be held by formre residents of the Gully and current generations. 

The Gully has been a ceremonial meeting place for traditional peoples of the Blue Mountains for perhaps thousands of years.  Since colonial settlement at Katoomba in the 1870s, The Gully has provided a secure haven for poor people both black and white, who although living in basic squat conditions in the extremes of Mountains weather, lived together as a close knit community; the Congregational ‘Mission’ Church for many years having played a key uniting role for Gully folk and as an informal umbrella protecting authority to stave off designs on the place by selfish others.

Jimmy War Sing, Chinese market gardener and fruiterer on his sulky in The Gully; the poor horse not well fed.

His ‘Chinese Garden’ was situated in a natural gully with a small watercourse running through it behind Loftus and Neale Streets (McRae’s Paddock).

(Photo circa 1903), supplied by Colin Slade in Pict. Memories Blue Mountains, John Low 2002)^http://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_mountains_library_-_local_studies/2669879647/  .

Two particular historic events have adversely impacted upon The Gully’s ecological integrity and its human community.  The first event was the bulldozing of the natural swamp of frogs hollow in the 1940s by developer Horace Gates to construct a dam as an artificial lake as part of his theme park scheme for the Gully.  A few years later a Catalina flying boat was floated in the dam (lake) as a tourism draw card.  At some time in the late 19th Century a local by the name of McRae, decided to bulldoze and infill the wetland in the mid part of the valley so that he could graze his horse stock.

The second event was the bulldozing of the entire top valley including the homes of several families in 1957 by the Blue Mountains Council in collaboration with a local fraternity car racing drivers and local businessmen to make way for a motor racing circuit – ‘Catalina Raceway’.  Those families were forcibly evicted from their homes, extricated from The Gully and one woman died of a heart attack during the raid.

Catalina Raceway was used for motor racing through the 1960s, by the 1970s the racing circuit had steadily fallen into disrepair. This was due to a number of factors – repeated foggy weather at many racing events, the inability of the racing association to repay its construction debt to the Blue Mountains Council, new competition from circuits nearer to Sydney (Oran Park and Amaroo Park), and due to the prohibitive cost of increasing motor racing safety standards, prompted by the death of two racing drivers on separate occasions at ‘Craven A Corner’.

The track became overgrown and weeds spread throughout the valley.  Blue Mountains Council named the valley ‘Catalina Park‘, and later named the top northern part of the valley as ‘Frank Walford Park’ after the namesake of a previous councillor who had been a key decision maker in approving the racetrack be built.  Car racing at Catalina, culminating in the formation of the Blue Mountains Tourist Association.

Catalina Raceway was a form of early Blue Mountains tourism and became very popular with car racing enthusiasts during the 1960s and 1970s.

 

In 1989, local nearby residents concerned about the poor state of the valley and with a desire to stop the car racing and protect the natural values of the valley, formed The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, Inc. (‘The Friends’). 

This grassroots local community group of local Katoomba residents established as one of the first bushcare groups in the Blue Mountains and since then their volunteers have regularly engaged in bush regeneration throughout the valley. 

 

The Friends also galvanised local community support to stop the racing and to rehabilitate the valley back to its natural condition, holding street stalls to raise funds and to raise community awareness over the plight of the long neglected valley.   The Friends lobbied Blue Mountains Council over nearly three decades to have the car racing banned, to have the weeds removed and to restore the valley to its pre-1957 natural state. 

The Friends’ became instrumental in having plans prepared for the rehabilitation for the valley, most notably the 1993 Bell Report prepared by environmental consultant Fred Bell, the only one done so in consultation with the local community.  To date, none of the several plans drafted has been put into effect by local council, so the Gully remains neglected and the race track long abandoned, yet the natural bush vegetation is steadily recovering.

In 2000, local Darug elder, Aunty Dawn Colless, was instrumental in achieving proper recognition for The Gully as an official Aboriginal Place under the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Act. On 18th May 2002, regrettably after Dawn’s passing, The Gully became protected under Sections 84, 85 and 90 from development and all racing formally banned.

 

 

 

Concerned local residents around The Gully back in 1988 began to realise that this natural creek valley immediately upstream and feeding Katoomba Falls and Kedumba River with fresh drinking water, was becoming increasingly under threat of destruction from various external vested interests.  So in 1989 a mob of them formed a local community environmental conservation bushcare and activist group , The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. 

This committed volunteer community group ran for some 27 years under the leadership and inspiration of local social worker and teacher, Neil Stuart.  Most members of ‘The Friends’ initially lived within the water catchment of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley – a natural amphitheatre of multiple watercourses on the western side of the Blue Mountains township of Katoomba, which covered about 600 hectares.

So yes they were NIMBYS proudly, defending their beautiful natural place from selfish invaders threatening to ruin and exploit the Nature and its natural amenity.

Without the concerted efforts and activism of this committed community group, it is most likely that The Gully would now no longer exist, but be a valley of housing and recreational development.

The purpose of this webpage is to offer a perpetual factual account of the truth about The Gully, its recent history, its stories, its plethora of threats to undermine its integrity, values and spirit over many decades, and the stories of the ongoing abuse, neglect, battles, egos, bias – warts and all.

In 2004, the Blue Mountains {city} Council finally released it 2002 draft Plan of Management for The Gully, however,  after seven years is yet to be funded and implemented; council preferring to fund multi-million urban developments such as nearby Katoomba Cultural (Shopping) Centre.  In that same year,  past Aboriginal residents and descendants of The Gully collaborated with local council management to have an archaeological survey conducted at key traditional cultural sites throughout The Gully.

In early  2006, a collaborative coalition of various community members including traditional Gundungurra and Darug and The Friends and formed ‘The Gully Guardians’, although this was short-lived due to undermining tactics by political interests within Blue Mountains Council causing hostilities.   This was superseded by the establishment of the ‘Gully Traditional Owners’ in June 2006 by representatives of the Aboriginal people that had inhabited the Gully over many generations.  The Gully Traditional Owners has since that time collaborated with Blue Mountains {city} Council to achieve New South Wales grant funding for restoration works, including a planned interpretative walking track through the Gully.

 

‘The Gully Cause’

 

The Gully Cause (i.e. saving it from ongoing abuse and neglect) is an humanitarian one as it is an ecological one. 

This creek valley is the site of some of the Blue Mountains most divisive conservation battles that persist – citing the forced evictions by Council, the notorious 1957 bulldozing for a car racetrack, the bulldozing for Katoomba golf course, massive subdivision for housing, council profiteering from land sales for incremental housing development, deforestation for mass tourism, arson, a sports centre development by council,  the creek diverted into a dam as part of one of two wacky theme park developments, etc, etc.

The values, history, stories, threats, abuse and neglect remain ongoing.  The Habitat Advocate was established in 2006 as a conservation activist organisation based in The Gully water catchment situated in inner west Katoomba.  

Since the events of 1957, when council acquired the majority of what was then known as Katoomba Falls Creek Valley upstream of Katoomba Falls to the highway, most of the land has been deemed Council Community Land, so it is largely public open space, except for the many sections sold off for development – both housing subdivision and mass tourism.

The editor of The Habitat Advocate has lived within The Gully water catchment since 2001 and has contributed an active community voluntary role to protect the natural values of The Gully and assist local residents and former residents of The Gully and their descendants in a constructive way.   This includes years of Bushcare weeding, SCA Streamwatch drinking water quality monitoring winning five awards from the Sydney Catchment Authority, as well as community activism as a member of the former local Katoomba community group Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (affectionately termed ‘The Friends’ by its members), which spanned some 26 years (1989 – 2016) protecting and the defending this natural valley from all sort of development threats. 

In addition, our editor was a member of the former Gully Guardians (a joint informal coalition of both local Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal locals and former residents of The Gully and their descendants).   I have enjoyed ongoing co-operation with The Gully Traditional Owners.

The Habitat Advocate grew out of its editor’s five year membership of local Katoomba protest action group The Friends from 2002 to 2006.  The Habitat Advocate is intimately aware of The Gully’s values, cultural sensitivities, histories, issues and threats that continue to affect this special place.

  

The Gully Collection

 

This Habitat Advocate webpage is dedicated to the conservation values of The Gully and remains a work-in-progress, collating various records, documents, images and accounts on The Gully so that locals, past, present and emerging of all persuasions may learn more about the important conservation values of this special place, thus continuing in the conservation spirit of The Friends. 

We have amassed a considerable library of knowledge on The Gully spanning a century.

An early photo of The Gully’s landscape (circa. 1920), taken looking from from the rear of the Balmoral Guesthouse (then 196 Main Street, since renamed Bathurst Road)  in Katoomba perhaps by the renowned Blue Mountains photographer Harry Phillips (1873-1944)

 

The following hyperlinks below are to pages and posts internally on this website that over time will form a reference library of material on The Gully restricted to what is in the public interest – ‘The Gully Collection‘ (created by The Habitat Advocate from 2016):

 

>Go To The Gully Collection

 

 

“The Bell Report” dated June 1993 was the first professionally academic study and report (environmental and archaeological) into Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, which subsequently is referred to as ‘The Gully’ by former residents and their descendants, of whom we greatly respect.   

The Bell Report’s correct title is ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study‘ and was published in printed form as an A4 sized spiral binder of some 87 pages in length and in budget black and white.   

This landmark environmental study included the first Environmental Management Plan outline for the Valley/Gully based upon the findings of the detailed study.    The ground-based/evidence-based field study was undertaken over twelve weeks in 1992 by qualified and experienced environmental consultants F. & J. Bell & Associates Pty Ltd who was based in the Sydney suburb of Sutherland.  The principal consultant was the late Dr Fred Bell BSc MSc PhD MEIA (1932-2009).    [Ed: MEIA stood for Member of the Environment Institute of Australia, which was subsequently renamed to the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand (EIANZ).  More info: ^https://www.eianz.org/]

Dr Fred Bell sadly passed away in 2009.  More about Fred can be garnered by an obituary article written in The Sydney Morning Herald of that year – refer to our ‘Further Reading‘ appendix at the end of this article.

This first study into The Gully by Dr Fred Bell was commissioned by local Katoomba-based environmental activist group ‘The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.’ (‘The Friends’).  It was thanks to this local resident group of Katoomba successfully applying for a $10,000 NSW Government grant for this landmark environmental study to be undertaken.  Members of The Friends subsequently referred to this report affectionately just as ‘The Bell Report‘ after its lead author Dr Fred Bell.  Further details are explained on Page i of the Executive Summary.

Assisting Dr Fred Bell received considerable field and investigative research contribution in this study specific to the local Aboriginal archaeological connection to The Gully by anthropologist Dr Val Attenbrow BA (Hons), PhD, who compiled Section 14 in Part 2 of this study.  However, given the sensitive nature of that research which we hold we consider it prudent not to publish this or Part 2 of the study on this website. 

Dr Fred Bell was known to ‘The Friends’ founder and leader, the late Neil Stuart BSc. (1937-2016), both environmental science graduates from The University of Sydney during the 1960s, who perhaps knew each other prior. Neil lived on the edge of the valley/The Gully.

For the benefit of the local community in and around The Gully catchment, we herein reproduce only Part 1 of this report of this study in its 87 page entirety, section by section.  In the context of the many studies and reports into The Gully, this Bell Report was the eighth such plan/report.  We replicate it below on this website in the public domain under Creative Commons copyright license type ‘Attribution-Non-Commercial’  [CC BY-NC].  This means that anyone is free to download it and print it and use it for non-commercial purposes in the interests of the natural rehabilitation of The Gully in Katoomba. 

[SOURCE:  ^https://creativecommons.org/licenses/]

 

The Bell Report of 1993  (Part 1)

 

0.  Executive Summary, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Gully-Report-8-1993-Ch-0-of-10-Executive-Summary.pdf

 

1. Introduction, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Gully-Report-8-1993-Ch-1-of-10-Introduction.pdf

 

2.Natural Environment, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Gully-Report-8-1993-Ch-2-of-10-Natural-Environment.pdf

 

3.Cultural Environment, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Gully-Report-8-1993-Ch-3-of-10-Cultural-Environment.pdf

 

4.Land Use, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Gully-Report-8-1993-Ch-4-of-10-Land-Use.pdf

 

5.Community Perceptions, Values and Aspirations, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Gully-Report-8-1993-Ch-5-of-10-Community-Perception-Values-and-Aspirations.pdf

 

6.Special Aspects of the Environmental Management Plan, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Gully-Report-8-1993-Ch-6-of-10-Special-Aspects-of-the-Environmental-Management-Plan.pdf

 

7.Actions for Restoration and Management of the Public Land, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Gully-Report-8-1993-Ch-7-of-10-Actions-for-Restoration-and-Management-of-the-Public-Land.pdf

 

8.Actions for Management of Catchment outside Public Land, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Gully-Report-8-1993-Ch-8-of-10-Actions-for-Management-of-Catchment-outside-Public-Land.pdf

 

9.Environmental Management Programme, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Gully-Report-8-1993-Ch-9-of-10-Environmental-Management-Programme.pdf

 

10.References, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Gully-Report-8-1993-Ch-10-of-10-References.pdf

 

Postscript   

 

Upon this study (Part 1 and Part 2) being presented by Dr Fred Bell to The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (The Friends) in June 1993, The Friends formally submitted the complete report to the General Manager of Blue Mountains City Council soon after. 

Council did absolutely nothing with it and just filed it.  Despite many years of The Friends seeking dialogue to act on the study’s recommendations and to establish a local community-based management consultative process with Council, Council shunned and ostracised The Friends continually over 28 years (1988-2016).

There have been some nineteen plans/reports into The Gully at the time of writing this article.  Very little has been done on the ground in The Gully over the decades by Council despite Council being the supposed custodian of all the public/community lands within the Gully. 

 

Further Reading:

 

[1]   ‘A sustained passion for survival, Fred Bell (1932-2009)‘, newspaper article published 16th October 2009 by Harriet Veitch with Bob Walshe in The Sydney Morning Herald, ^https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-sustained-passion-for-survival-20091015-gz5m.html

 

Transcript:

‘Fred Bell wanted to save the world. He lectured in climatology and environmental science around Australia and in other countries, worked for environmental action groups and put his ideas into practice by building eco-friendly houses ahead of their time and growing and eating native plants before it was fashionable.

Frederick Charles Bell was born in Sydney on September 12, 1932, the first of three sons of Charles Bell and his wife Edna Taylor. Charles had been orphaned at eight and was made a ward of the state, the advantage being that he was given a good education and with that went on to be a successful businessman.

 

Fred’s academic ability was soon recognised. He went from Rockdale Public School to the Erskineville opportunity classes and won a bursary to Canterbury Boys High, then selective.

He was an enthusiastic Boy Scout and later became a scout leader. He was also a talented middle-distance runner and later ran in almost every City to Surf race.

After marrying his bushwalking companion, Joan Mayman, an accountant, in 1959, Bell studied science and mathematics at the University of Sydney. After taking his bachelor degree in 1962, he moved to the University of NSW to do a masters in civil engineering in 1965 and a PhD in the mathematical modelling of natural processes in 1974. He started lecturing at the University of NSW in 1970 and by 1972 was a senior lecturer in climatology, geomorphology, biogeography and environmental science.

Dr Bell pursued a wide range of research projects while he was teaching. He was a passionate teacher, bridging the gap between hydrology and climate and in later years championing the introduction of study units in environmental impact analysis. These were the first of their kind in Australia and were a mixture of legal, social and physical science, including the useful art of writing environmental impact statements.

He also, at various times, worked with the University of Newcastle, the Department of Works in Darwin, the CSIRO in Brisbane and Cairns, Florida State University, Colorado State University and the University of East Anglia.

His research contributed significantly to environmental causes such as gaining world heritage listing for North Queensland rainforests, preserving forest ecosystems in NSW and restoring water to the Snowy River and the Macquarie Marshes. His mathematical models for predicting local convective rainfall were successfully adapted by India and several developing countries.

The three family houses that he and Joan designed and built contained ”contraptions” often ahead of their time to help the environment. They all had such innovations as passive solar energy design, compost heaps, worm farms and tanks to recycle waste water, and were often out of character in their areas.

In 1972, Bell joined the management committee of the newly formed Total Environment Centre and remained a member for more than 20 years. There in the 1980s he worked on a study of which NSW forests should be preserved and worked with the centre’s wildlife in peril group to make the first national list of endangered species.

He was on call for the Sutherland Shire Environment Centre from its beginning in 1991 and was also a foundation member of the Community Environment Network on the Central Coast.

Bell stayed at the University of NSW until 1989 then retired to form his own business with Joan, F & J Bell and Associates, an environmental and horticultural consultancy firm. In later years, he focused more attention on climate change, using his expertise in climatology to explain the science of climate change to the public.

He loved cooking and eventually took over the household cooking and shopping. He was always experimenting with new combinations of foods (such as peanut butter, alfalfa sprout and salmon sandwiches) and was highly knowledgeable about bush tucker. Visitors were likely to be offered snacks of cheeky yam, pig face, lemon myrtle, exocarpus, lilli pilli and bunya nuts.

Bell told friends that 2007 was his ”Eureka year” because decades of research and thought had coalesced as a vision of a new applied science, which he called ”pronomics”. It was a revision of mainstream economics with the aim of creating ”ethical economics” or ”sustainable economics” to satisfy present human needs without harm to humans or other life. Bell believed that pronomics would make responsible decision-making possible and address serious global problems such as climate change with scientific predictive techniques.

Bell continued his work all his life and died suddenly, leaving behind extensive notes for books he had planned to write when he had time.

Fred Bell is survived by Joan, their children Heather, Greg and Fiona, seven grandchildren and his brothers Graeme and Rodney.’

 

[2]  The Gully Collection, (a library of information within this website about The Gully in Katoomba) >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/consultancy/the-gully-in-katoomba/the-gully-collection/