Within just a minute’s walk from The Habitat Advocate base we happened upon some wonderful local wildlife.
It was a native Blotched Blue Tongue Lizard in this case (scientific species name Tiliquanigrolutea). It was 10th February 2025 (summer) in the late hot afternoon around 6:30pm AEDT, so the sun was still up in the western sky; this given sunsets in late summer at this time of year are as late as 8 pm, some two hours hence. So, this happenstance timing made sense, but a rare sighting these days.
This particular lizard was not easy to then photograph due to it subsequently retreating from the footpath (after we went back for our camera) and retreating into the camouflage cover of the grassy verge behind for safety.
Upon our initial sighting, this lizard had been laying in the middle of the footpath sunning itself – being a cold-blooded lizard (‘ectothermically’ that is; not the human malice variety).
This one we think is female – telling from the comparatively small head size and its thicker tail root. It was not a native Shingleback Lizard (scientific species name Tiliqua rugosa) since such species has a stubbed tail land prefers the habitat plains inland from the Great Dividing Range, and are not found in the Blue Mountains region, whereas Blue Tongues are.
The location was on The Gully’s urban periphery, yet wholly environmentally within the broader Gully Water Subcatchment, where The Habitat Advocate is based. So nice to see wildlife in one’s neighbourhood – we share local wildlife’s neighbourhood.
We provide hyperlinks below to further information and clearer images about this lizard species.
Anyway, it was a pleasurably welcomed and encouraging sighting.
Such sightings however are increasingly rare around these parts these days due to Council’s habitat destruction – pretty much since Council has existed since its origins in Katoomba in 1890, then in 1947 re-branding itself Blue Mountains City Council from being a two adjacent regional municipality/shire councils. Then from November 2000 after the Blue Mountains region was declared an international World Heritage Area, this local Blue Mountains Council has bizarrely extolled its contradictory perceived virtues of being a city within a World Heritage Area – what espousing urban sprawl development and high-rises amongst Eucalyptus habitat?
We bought our house in 2000, which had there since the 1920’s. So, we did not build into bush, but rather it was long existing ‘in-town’, and so technically we just recycled and renovated it. It had had only lawn back and front, but since 2001 we have created an onsite forest and restored much local habitat on site, So, no more grass and we then gave away our lawn mower!
One also recalls that on 13th February back in 2017 around 5:30 pm during a 47o Celsius unseasonal heatwave weather event across New South Wales, observing a large native Eastern Brown Snake (scientific species Pseudonaja textilis) of almost 2 metres in length scurrying across the scorching road surface of our street into the cooler shade of our forested front garden. Well, we chose not to garden or water there for a week afterwards and warned our neighbours. However, we immediately reported this snake sighting to the volunteer-based Wildlife Rescue Service (WIRES) for safety guidance and we spoke to one of their trained snake catchers who gave us helpful and reassuring advice over the phone.
Also, when we first moved in where we are, one had to contend with a native Blue Mountains Funnel Web Spider (scientific name Hadronyche versuta) ground nest in our then unkempt backyard, also unfortunately the native Brown Broadfooted Marsupial Mouse (scientific name is Antechinus stuartii) family over the back fence that we observed, eventually sadly perished.
But it beats living in increasing sprawling concreted, treeless sterile Sydney human megalopolis.
[7] ‘Fauna Watch –Winter is not the time for hunkering down for Antechinus!, 2019-08-19, by Anne Carey, Bushcare Blue Mountains (Fauna, Natives), ^https://bushcarebluemountains.org.au/fauna-watch/
So, following the loud noise disturbance from the Katoomba Carrington Hotel on Saturday 26th October 2024, and from our failed attempt to chat with the hotel’s festival organiser, who immediately ordered us off his premises, we notify local Blue Mountains Council on the following Monday 28th October when Council is back at work.
We lodged a Customer Service Request (CSR 514828) to Council and request a dialogue about this matter.
This Carrington’s owner had setup some brass band with additional amplified music situated in the guest car park that played over towards adjoining residences, rather than having previously utilised their approved festival space (of equivalent size) on the other side of The Carrington’s grounds in the more suitable bustling retail heart of uptown Katoomba just off high street Katoomba Street.
We received no response from back from Council by Wednesday 30th October. So we emailed out complaint to Council in writing as follows, and this isn’t the first time we’ve raised this intrusively loud amplified noise issue with this Carrington owner.
Attention: Council’s Programme Leader for Health and Compliance
RE: Noise Complaints – Carrington Hotel amplified music | CSR 514828/13 Feb 2024 | CSR 558418/28-Oct-2024
I hereby again complain a second time to you about the amplified noise coming from The Carrington Hotel premises…
Last time, on 13th February this year I had previously raised this noise problem with both The Carrington management via its Reception and then local Council. A day later I happend to then receive a phone call from one of the joint owners of the Carrington Hotel identifying himself to me as Michael Brischetto. I explained to him about my genuine concerns about the very loud amplified music audible from my place and our conversation then was amicable.
Now we have another noise disturbance incident.
All I seek in this matter is a right to quiet enjoyment of where I live in an historical and typically quiet residential neighbourhood. I am concerned about this new noise becoming a precedent and a more frequent occurrence if not nipped in the bud.
My records and expressed concerns support my real worries about what this ‘new noise’ pollution could lead to, to risk destroying our peaceful home environment:
1. I refer to my email to you 7th March 2024 about the loud amplified music noise at The Carrington Hotel car park off Parke Street in Katoomba, and also from last Saturday 26th October 2024.
2. This loud noise was clearly audible to me at my home, being situated three streets away to the west in Kundibar Street. The noise started in the morning, and on and off, continued into the night. The first I heard it, it was a loud small brass band playing with a heavy bass guitar reverberating deep sound that was audible from inside my home. I happened to have been ill that day and I was asleep in bed, and this noise woke me up.
3. This amplified noise could be heard as far away as Waimea Street in The Gully, more than 250 metres away westward through this residential precinct. I had a walk around the block that day and I confirm this. [See attached ‘Residential Proximity to Noise Map’]
Residential Proximity to Noise
4. I then went to inspect where the noise from coming from and found it emanating from The Carrington Hotel’s car park off Parke Street, used again for a music festival – this time The Carrington’s own ‘Oktoberfest’ festival involving live bands (amplified music) and selling beer in The Carrington’s car park.
5. Again, as a local resident, I consider it highly inappropriate and disrespectful that amplified noise be allowed to occur adjacent to residential homes and audible into the back streets beyond.
6. Generally, The Carrington Hotel’s owners permit public access on site to the Grounds, Front Verandah, Reception, the Cocktail Bar, its adjoining toilets, Lounge and Dining spaces. On this particular Saturday, public access was granted to the car park’s upper level where the festival was taking place under a large marquee. So as a member of the public I was free to walk around the grounds and the upper level of the car park and to freely take ‘tourist’ photos.
This I did.
7. I noticed the event’s signage on the day read that it was open to general public. I also read the event promotional banner above the car park lower-level eastern entrance read ‘Free admission’.
8. As supporting evidence, I attach photos I took last Saturday on foot as well as my audio recording (software of which does not reflect the true loudness of the actual volume).
9. For your reference, also as supporting evidence I attach copies of excerpts of The Carrington’s public website specific to this event ’Oktoberfest’. SOURCE: ^https://thecarrington.com.au/whats-on/oktoberfest/ [Accessed: 30-Oct-2024]
10. My understanding is that The Carrington a few years back (perhaps 2015) gained Council approval to double the size of its car park by converting it into a two-storey car park. But this car park second-story development was surely not approved as a venue for holding festivals, concerts, serving alcohol and encouraging large crowd gathering, nor for playing loud amplified music. Is this the case?
11. The Carrington’s website advertised this event to occur between 11am and 9pm on the Saturday. Did Council give approval to The Carrington Hotels owners for this event and amplified music?
12. The juxtaposition of this car park is directly across the street from residential homes. Indeed, these homes at situated in a heritage housing conservation precinct dating back to the 1870s. It includes heritage listed ‘North’s Estate’ which pre-dates The Carrington Hotel opening of 1883. This Norths Estate’ is where I live and have done so in residential quiet enjoyment continually since 2001.
13. The current owners of The Carrington Hotel date their ownership to 2004.
14. I request a copy of council’s consent conditions for this car park development, since I am an adversely affected neighbour to this development use.
15. Did Council approve the use of the car park for festivals including loud amplified noise that could be audible into the adjoining residential area many streets away?
16. On this occasion, I walked up to the pedestrian entrance to this festival in the car park and met a man in a silly pixie hat and costume wearing sunglasses (my photo attached) there gatekeeping the festival’s entrance, who then identified himself as one of the joint owners of The Carrington. It was Michael Brischetto again.
I expressed my concerns to Mr Brischetto politely about the loud amplified noise, pointing out that I live just a few streets away.
But he was quite rude to me, refusing to listen to me, and recalled my previous complaint from the February festival and realised I was the same person who had complained then.
Mr Brischetto then immediately ordered me to “Get off my property!” So I immediately did so.
17. So, having tried to reason with Michael Brischetto unsuccessfully, I now complain to Council about this noise.
18. As before, I request such loud festival events not be staged in The Carrington’s purpose-built car park off Katoomba’s Parke Street, but rather at the dedicated grassed lawn area (below), which has been successfully used previously for such festivals as the Lady Luck Festival (of the past 14 years) , which is more appropriately located off Katoomba Street in the heart of retail Katoomba, some 200 metres east of the car park.
I am sure that both The Carrington Hotel owners and Council could readily work together toward a mutually suitable arrangement for such ongoing festivals, so as not to upset local residents like me and my family by it using its unintended car park near homes.
19. This time, I request Council actually contacts the owners of The Carrington about this matter, notifies them of my complaint and that Council does something to address it, ideally prohibit such loud amplified music from being played from its car park off Parke Street please.
20. I am prepared to go public on this matter, and indeed pursue this matter legally.
From our personal experience, we would NOT describe The Carrington Hotel as being a good neighbour in Katoomba where we live.
On Saturday late morning 26th October 2024, from where we live in The Gully Catchment of Katoomba, we were dozing at home as not feeling particularly well.
Suddenly, we then get this pounding deep bass sound reverberating from somewhere not far away. It was so loud that it became impossible to sleep through. Where was it coming from?
Ours is a quiet residential neighbourhood set in the oldest heritage precinct of the Blue Mountains. Our street dates to the 1870s, even before The Carrington Hotel of 1883 up on the hill.
So we get up and dress to investigate the noisy racket. We shortly find the source just three short streets away. We reproduce two samples below, but the volume is ten times louder that what the AMR software on our iPhone has captured. Most of the band playing sounds out of tune.
It’s that bloody Carrington Hotel again, thumping its amplified festival music from what is supposed to be its large car park rooftop on nearby Parke Street on the top of the hill in our township of Katoomba.
We had previously raised our concerns about a similar car park festival episode directly with one of The Carrington’s joint owners on a previous occasion back in February 2024, when some other concert started up on top of the same car park playing loud amplified music (multiple large stage speakers pointing in direction of our home) so audible as to be heard down into The Gully, half a kilometre away.
On this occasion, 26th October, it was some blood brass band amplified up at full volume, again! WTF!
Yet there are residential homes just across Parke Street, just metres away from the stage where the band is playing, like ours about 300 metres away from the now fabricated temporary stage.
This is what we heard and saw on the car park second storey upon our investigation after having just woken up…
This is just not fair! A festival with loud amplified music set up juxtaposed to residential homes? It’s so selfish and arrogant and it’s not right. It’s hardly respecting the rights of immediate locals like us to our quiet enjoyment. It’s a noise impost.
And it’s also so unnecessary that this particularly large accommodation hotel with options of utilising its multiple internal entertainment spaces and on such an extensive site, should resort to re-purposing its purpose built guest car park into a festival venue and so cause annoyance to locals immediately across the street (Parke Street) and on to adjoining quiet back streets like ours within earshot.
We say this because The Carrington Hotel has ready onsite access also to a similarly sized level grassed area at the front of the hotel site just off retail Katoomba Street. The Carrington has long used this level open lawned space for various festivals and events. It’s a perfect location in the retail heart of Katoomba!
The Lady Luck Festival has been run for the past 14 years using both this marquee for dancing plus the inside of the Carrington’s sizeable ballroom.
So, then why move the Carrington’s marquee from here in town to the rear car park opposite residences?
Today, unable to sleep and feeling a bit crook, we approached the entrance to the car park festival and briefly expressed our concerns to some bloke in a pixie hat and joker costume about the loud amplified noise and that we lived just a few streets away. The bloke happened to be one of The Carrington’s joint owners in disguise. He promptly got agitated with one’s comments and then immediately ordered me to leave his property, as in “bugger off”!
The Carrington’s nasty pixie (left). Note the body language.
As a Katoomba resident where we live since 2001, we provide some instructional background.
A few years back, Blue Mountains Council granted The Carrington Hotel development approval to double the size of its car park off Parke Street on its very large site. The approval was to build a second storey car park above the existing car park so as to double off-street parking capacity for its in-house guests. This followed substantial renovations of many rooms which so increased the hotel’s accommodation capacity.
We have no problem about The Carrington Hotel’s enlarged car park being used as a car park for its staying guests. The investment into restoring, upgrading and diversifying the Carrington continues to wonderfully appreciated for Katoomba. As long locals we know of no other tourism establishment that has done so this this extent. This is a credit to its joint owners.
The car park concrete structure is about the size of a narrow-elongated basketball court and further dominates the hotel’s 4 storey high-rise landscape on top of the hill in uptown Katoomba.
This festival is the Carrington’s own Oktoberfest on 26th October since 2023. We were away at the time that year.
But why a decision for a remote miniature Oktoberfest festival in Katoomba outside Sydney, when there has long been a huge one in Sydney’s Botanic Gardens annually every October attracting thousands? It’s held on the very same day on the 26th!
So why the hell would tourists in Sydney not conveniently head close by to the real big deal in Sydney, to instead choose a 4-hour return train ride to The Carrington car park in Katoomba for a half-pint to bad music? No chance!
Sydney’s ‘Oktoberfest in the Gardens’ 26th October
A big double storey concrete car park is one thing, but then we discover they’re starting to use it for ticketed music festivals and even lease it out to independent festival organisers. So they’re profiting from festivals despite never having had such Council approval to do so. We would have objected had the development application plans included converting the car park into a venue for external festival hire.
This is the car park in question showing its driveway entrance off Parke Street. The brass band is playing behind the car park gates on a stage behind the calico screen inside the temporary marquee.
The following aerial view of this precinct in Katoomba (Google Maps) shows the relevant juxtaposition of The Carrington hotel with its car park used as a band stage (shown in red), plus the remaining section of the car park for audience seating and outdoors drinking of German beers in large jugs.
It also shows the proximity of the residential housing and also the similar sized garden lawn (yellow rectangle) situated within the Carrington grounds off Katoomba Street.
The Carrington Hotel and its juxtaposition
Same problem, different camera angle. Who approved a car park for festival hire?
So why doesn’t the Carrington simply return to using the Council-approved outdoor entertainment space it had purposely re-developed on its flat lawned area right in the retail heart of Katoomba, rather than pissing off local residents to the west of the hotel.
Some big business people presume they can do what they want and bugger everyone else? Perhaps the owners would benefit more by investing quality time researching negotiation pathways with local Council to mitigate the costs of returning to utilising the grassed area for events as before and the Carrington’s similarly sized large ballroom. But diversifying into illegally using the hotel’s guest car park to hock for event leasing to external festival organisers for a pittance return?
Indeed the event is promoted as “free admission” as per the banner outside (see below). So what its the point of this event? The musicians would not be performing for free. Only the beer it seems, is for sale. So the whole thing appears to be a loss making exercise. Is this for the indulgence of the pixie who just likes getting dress down and drinking beer? Or is he just wanting to piss off the neighbours?
The event banner reads “Free Admission”
Of course, while the car park has been leased out, many of The Carrington’s in-house guests will be denied the brochured off-street parking, so be relegated to use Council’s on street paid parking, costing over $100 per day. We suggest this pet project to annoy locals is a false economy. So as Katoomba long-time locals, we wont be frequenting The Carrington any time soon. The actions of The Carrington are so unneighbourly.
The big concern we have is that this illegal use of the car park repurposed for festivals, risks setting a precedent for drunken crowds and on a more frequent basis. The toilets are not convenient to the car park. The only toilets are well inside the hotel itself, passed reception, passed the bar if you now where to find them. So what is preventing drunken party goers after downing a full German beer jug or three, desperate for a leak, taking advance of the adjacent brick walls of the adjoining Blue Mountains Cultural Centre and the front fences of local homes to urinate into the wee hours. There are no toilets in the car park. Is the car park a licensed venue to serve alcohol? We’ve not heard.
What is to come if this is allowed to snowball into a more regular Carrington Hotel Booze Fest, fuelled by incoming bus loads of yobbos on bucks nights.
Surely, no Katoomba local here wants this problem. The festival lease brain-snap for a re-purposing of the car park needs to stopped in it tracks before it morphs out of control!
As if Katoomba doesn’t already have enough booze outlets!
Where is local Blue Mountains Council in all this?
Comment:
Judy Harding:
“I text the Carrington saying I was considering staying there but have been told it’s too noisy because of the bands playing in the car park so I have decided to stay in Leura.”
[2] ‘Oktoberfest in the Gardens‘, Botanic Gardens of Sydney, ^https://www.botanicgardens.org.au/whats-on/oktoberfest-gardens, Australia’s biggest and best Oktoberfest celebration returns to Sydney in 2024, Abstract: “Inspired by a love of the traditional Bavarian festival and great beer. Oktoberfest in the Gardens Sydney features two massive beer halls, authentic German food stalls, roving performers, sideshow alley, silent disco and an eclectic mix of entertainment and competitions across multiple stages throughout the afternoon and evening. Taste your way across Europe with a large selection of imported German beer, cider, wine and a range of other beverages.”
This is yet another example of neglected stormwater runoff maintenance by Blue Mountains {city} Council. Its in-creek water pollution trap (vane style) device is situated just above Katoomba Falls (left of photo).
Our editor standing in front of large piles of sand pollution re-directed out of Katoomba Falls Creek by an in-creek pollution control device (left). [Photo by The Habitat Advocate, taken Thursday 30th May-2024.]
This pollution detritus trap has, from our very local experience over two decades, been typically full of destroyed native vegetation debris caused by (a) torrential rain events, and (b) bushland clearing (deforestation). It has also been observed typically full of siltation from (a) upstream creek bank erosion through Maple Grove, (b) from housing construction sand and graded topsoil, and (c) from unfiltered urban stormwater waste ignored by Council since it was established first as the Municipality of Katoomba in 1889.
We have lived in The Gully Water Catchment since 2001. The Gully Water Catchment includes all land with watercourses and natural drainage flowing to Katoomba Falls, and we have taken a keen interest in this natural place.
Katoomba Falls Creek Catchment as it was then called in 1993. [SOURCE: The Bell Report]
From our observed experience as local environmental activists, Council’s ongoing management culture is such that it focuses on the capital works projects, obtains external grant funding (usually from the NSW Government) but then fails to budget and resource the ongoing maintenance of such capital works projects. This Baramy Trap is another case in point.
We repeatedly observe this pollution trap full and overflowing for months at a time, so the trap overflows and the continuing detritus flows downstream into the downstream Kedumba River to supply Greater Sydney’s drinking water to Sydney’s artificial Lake Burragorang for Sydney and a Greater Sydney so scarily morphing beyond. Currently this pollution trap has been full of sand sediment for many months.
The above photo shows the concrete ramp down to the pollution trap for access by a small front-end mechanical loader designed to remove the sand and debris pollution into a waiting tip-truck.
A Bobcat more suited to a construction site or at a beach as in this example photo. But at Blue Mountains {city} Council it’s Missing-In-Action.
Council is supposed to maintain it and clean it out on an ‘as-needed‘ basis periodically, but it doesn’t. The following is an extract of Baramy’s terms and conditions for this pollution device once installed.
We obtained a copy of these terms and conditions back in 2004 when The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (the Friends) sought a quote for a similar but smaller pollution device (4 m long x 2.1 m wide) previously to be constructed in the same creek further upstream. Baramy’s quote came in at $26,000 and we referred this initiative for action/grant funding to Council – it being the custodian of this community land and the creek water catchment. But Council ignored it.
In this case Council is the “customer” having paid to have this much larger device constructed by Baramy Engineering in this different location much further downstream. It would have cost Council double, constructed probably around 2005 from one’s memory.
Council’s culture
Council has form of having its other non-environmental priorities, such as its latest newfangled ‘Planetary Health Initiative’ to showcase its environmental stewardship, when it is just more greenwashing.
Previously, all such debris, sediment and stormwater pollution into the creek used to just flow over Katoomba Cascades and further downstream over Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River below and southward through the Jamison Valley.
Katoomba Cascades during full flood, situated about 100 metres downstream of the pollution trap. [SOURCE: Photo by Brigitte Grant, in article ‘Flood photos: Three-day drenching’ 22nd March 2021, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper]
Katoomba Falls in full flood after days of heavy rain. The falls are situated about 300 metres downstream of the pollution trap. [SOURCE: Photographer unknown, in article ‘Police to co-ordinate evacuation of visitors trapped in Megalong Valley following landslip’ 4th April 2024, by Damien Madigan in Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper]
By the way, Upper Mountains sewage design (Katoomba, Leura, Wentworth Falls) back between 1907 and the 1990’s also flowed by iron piping down into the Jamison Valley to the former Leura Sewage Treatment Plant (historic image below) situated just by Leura Falls Creek between Echo Point and Sublime Point. The iron piping still can be seen along hiking tracks down the escarpment – the reason for the hiking tracks actually being first constructed.
We estimate that the current sand quantity filling this particular Creek Pollution Trap would be twenty cubic metres at least. We reported the problem to Council the day we took the first photo above – receiving Council’s Customer Service Request reference #533082.
We’re not the only locals having noticed this particular in-creek pollution trap full. Here’s another documented event of the very same pollution trap in February 2020. It was during the start of Australia’s East Coast Low events associated with the La Niña oscillating weather pattern:
Local Blue Mountains Aboriginal Gundungurra Elder, Mr David King, posting his video on Google YouTube protesting this exact same problem back in 2020. He even likened it Bondi Beach! [SOURCE]
This pollution trap’s exact location is situated beside Cliff Drive in Katoomba on the southern (downstream) side of the road at the road culvert over Katoomba Falls Creek. See the aerial photographic map below showing the yellow star.
An aerial photo of the 100 ha extent of The Gully Water Catchment juxtaposed upstream of this pollution trap. (NB. The “Katoomba Falls” photo label is incorrectly shown on this image, being rather just a Google nominal reference on the roadside. [SOURCE: Google Maps aerial photo, 2024]
This in-creek pollution trap was constructed by Baramy Engineering Pty Ltd of Katoomba for Council.
The Baramy Vane Trap showing the two rows of vertical galvanised steel vanes in the creek line that divert debris to the concrete trap device on the right.
The construction timing was a few years or so following The Greater Blue Mountains Area (1 million km2) being inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list on 29th November 2000. Katoomba Falls flows into the Jamison Valley within this World Heritage area. The Jamison Valley, below these falls (and others) is also part of the drinking water catchment leading to Warragamba Dam supplying an ever-expanding Greater Sydney (current population approaching 5.5 million) adjoining the Blue Mountains region.
It is the researched opinion of The Habitat Advocate that this World Heritage listing was more about the human utility of protecting the value of Sydney’s drinking water in perpetuity, than it was about protecting the Eucalyptus forests of the Blue Mountains.
Katoomba Falls in the centre of this photo. The Gully Water Catchment upstream feeds natural and stormwater to these falls. The area covers an estimated 100 hectares a passes through a small valley up on the Blue Mountains plateau. This valley includes bushland and increasingly more and more housing development.
Notably, the sand type in this pollution trap appears to be not the naturally river sand, but consistently all the same light colour of Concrete Sand type used commercially in construction.
Concrete Sand
Concrete Sand is a coarser sand variety, pivotal in construction use to create strong and durable concrete structures. It’s typically made from crushed quartz, which gives it a rougher texture, enhancing the binding properties in concrete mixtures. This sand type is indispensable for laying robust foundations, constructing driveways, and forming sidewalks. This is exactly what is going on in The Gully Catchment upstream of this creek pollution trap.
Whereas the natural creek-bed of Katoomba Falls Creek is comprised of small pebbles. This editor knows this from being local to Katoomba Falls Creek Valley and having voluntarily performed Streamwatch quality monitoring of Katoomba Falls Creek for five years (2004-2008) on behalf of the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, Inc. reporting to the Sydney Catchment Authority (SCA) within the New South Wales Governments Sydney Water department.
An example of the characteristics of creek-bed pebbles typically found naturally on the creek bed of Katoomba Falls Creek and other nearby watercourses – yet sadly beneath the years of construction sand sedimentation pollution from various identified housing construction sites throughout this plateaued catchment.
Council doesn’t analyse the sand to determine its source. Council doesn’t fine the polluters and issue a stop work court order. Council doesn’t employ a hydrologist or geotechnical engineer on its books. Yet where is all the housing constrution taking place in the Blue Mountains? Upstream of the World Heritage area.
In our view, Council is unfit in delegated stewardship as custodian of the geographic plateau of the Blue Mountains Local Government Area (LGA) atop the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area from its atrocious record of failings. So long as this pollution control device is full and overflowing, sand and debris is flowing downstream over Katoomba Cascades and Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River. Parks Service (‘NPWS’) doesn’t monitor pollution levels or water quality in Kedumba River down in the Jamison Valley.
Council doesn’t enforce sediment controls are housing development sites upstream in The Gully Water Catchment (Katoomba Falls Creek Valley).
There are current two large housing subdivision sites contribution to sedimentation of the creek.
Some 13 odd hectares of fragile native bush surrounding an upland brook between Stuarts & Wellington Roads is to be bulldozed into a 53 cluster housing subdivision.
Bulldozing all the top soil throughout this side creek valley to Katoomba Falls Creek (Kedumba River). [Photo by Editor, Sunday 26th May 2024]
[5] ‘Pollution Control Device‘ quote prepared for ‘Frank Walford Park Bushcare’ (Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc), 2004-09-27, by Baramy Engineering Pty Ltd, 7 pages.
Back in 2004, Blue Mountains {city} Council’s pre-existing Plan of Management for The Gully, was entitled ‘UPPER KEDUMBA RIVER VALLEY Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within “The Gully” Aboriginal Place‘.
Yes, sixteen words made the title a tad lengthy, so Council bureaucracy abbreviated it to ‘PoM’. Perhaps ‘The Gully Plan of Management 2004’ would have been just fine for most.
Our research attests that the 2004 Plan for The Gully sadly is but the 18th report over many decades for this long abused and neglected small valley on the western fringe of Katoomba, increasing surrounded and encroached by profitable housing development.
Council’s 2004 Plan for The Gully was some 105 pages incorporating Council’s defined ‘Community (public) Land’ reserves of the following multiple bushland parcels :
Frank Walford Park
McRae’s Paddock
Selby Street Reserve
Katoomba Falls Reserve
Katoomba Cascades
Plus side watercourse/riperian gullies through Council’s recategorised as ‘Operational Land’ and sold off for profit, namely Katoomba Golf Course and the significant side valley innocuously identified as 21 Stuarts Road, Katoomba…
All these lands lie directly upstream and feed downstream into Katoomba Falls and the Kedumba River water catchment. The 2004 Plan was portrayed as holistically recognise, encompass and include the catchment value of entire remnant natural bushland valley upstream of Katoomba Falls (image below). It was Council’s pretense.
Yet of the many ‘Management Policies’, ‘Masterplans’ and ‘Action Plans’ that were specified in the 2004 Plan (of Management) over last 17 years Council’s management bureacracy has done precious little by way of implementation of any ‘management’.
Many of the same bureaucrats involved with The Gully on Council over the years are still there, with increasing remuneration. Whereas the bulk of funding for remedial works undertaken in The Gully has come from external NSW government grant sources and in most cases the works undertaken by local community volunteers unpaid.
The 2004 Plan of Management for The Gully was basically filed by Council on the day Council approved the plan. Council bureaucracy has sat back let others source any funding and conduct reparations. Recent history confirms after seventeen years that Council was disingenuous about the 2004 Plan and never intended it to be a plan of management, rather just another compliance report for filing, something Blue Mountain Council has proven adept at, paying fortunes to external consultants.
All the while The Gully is but a ten minute walking distance from Blue Mountains Council chambers situated 300 metres away just across the highway. In Council’s list of management priorities, The Gully may as well be situated in another local government area.
Indeed, Council’s custodial responsibility has been perpetually avoided ever since 1957 and prior. Council’s management performance in The Gully and its broader community of support has been characterised environmentally as one of destruction and neglect, and socially as one of contempt, obstruction, hauty recalcitrance, and divide and conquer politics. From this author’s experiences since 2001, Council’s management bureaucracy has persisted with a culture of contempt for The Gully, and no councillor has dared champion the plight of The Gully’s neglected cause.
Blue Mountains Council since 1957 has held custodial responsibility for community owned lands known as Catalina Park, Frank Walford Park, then Katoomba Falls Creek Valley and then Upper Kedumba River Valley, all currently referred to collectively as ‘The Gully‘. The Gully was declared an ‘Aboriginal Place’ in 2002 under Section 84 of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.
But Council is selective about what it labels as ‘The Gully’. Council’s zoned ‘Community Land’ (mostly stilll natural bushland) is a larger parcel that what it identiifies as ‘The Gully Aboriginal Place’ within the entire valley. You see the holistic natural valley of The Gully extends to the entire water catchment upstream, of Katoomba Falls – basically from the watershed of the Great Western Highway along the northern boundary, the watershed of Narrowneck Road along the western boundary, and what is Parke Street along the eastern boundary. Of course, this valley has been long developed by housing subdvision over the decades since colonial settlement in the 1870s and so the natural bushland and riparians zones have been bulldozed for settlement use on the bushland edge of the town of Katoomba.
So the lands that comprise The Gully are somewhat confusing to many. This suits Council’s management bureaucracy’s agenda to do what it wants. This author, a local since 2001 has been monitoring and researching Council’s bureaucracy ploys with The Gully and its communities since the late 1940s in the lead up to its 1957 forced evictions of poor people – black, white, brindle.
Council’s review of The Gully’s 2004 Plan is long overdue
In 2020, Council stated on its Gully Plan review webpage thus:
“This Plan of Management (PoM) is 16 years old and does not reflect the contemporary cultural values and perspectives held by the Gully community. Funding from the NSW Government, NSW Heritage Grants – Aboriginal Heritage Projects has been made available to review and update the Plan of Management for the Gully.”
Council began its review of the 2004 plan in 2017. The bulk of the consultation process to review the 2004 Plan of Management of some 17 years prior was supposed to have be done in 2009, and with annual assessment of the progress of the implementation of Council’s approved 2004 plan, as evidenced as follows:
SOURCE: ‘UPPER KEDUMBA RIVER VALLEY Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within “The Gully” Aboriginal Place (Blue Mountains {City?} Council, revised edition 2004, Appendix C: ‘Summary of Relevant Strategies / Policies’, p.101.
Well, better late than never. Council only undertook the plan’s review kicking and screaming in order to comply with NSW Government legislative requirements – and then it did so by outsourcing the task to a contractor and to an external consultancy using ratepayer funding. The Gully being an Aboriginal Place listed under the National Parks Act 1974, Council reviewed the 2004 Plan and prepared draft Plan of Management for The Gully, following the NSW Government’s Guideline for Developing Management Plans for declared Aboriginal Places 2012. The review of the 2004 plan was also prepared in accordance with Division 3.6 of the Crown Lands Management Act 2016. Public exhibition of the draft Plan of Management was required under Sections 38 and 40 of the Local Government Act 1993, which requires not fewer than 28 days for public exhibition of the draft plan.
So who is ‘The Gully Community‘ according to Council aficionados?
Back in the days of when dozens of concerned local residents in and around The Gully catchment were campaigning to end the invasive car racing (1989 – 2006), those considered informally part of The Gully Community were quite a bush of mixed racial/cultural background that mattered not. It was just about the cause of cariung for The Valley/Gully. It included former residents of The Gully (before the racetrack was bulldozed through the valley in 1957), both Aboriginal (mainly of Gundungurra and Dharug ancestry) and non-Aboriginal and intermarried families, descendants of those residents, subsequent locals living in and around Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, members of local community bushcare and activist group The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc., and an informal collective know for a time as The Gully Guardians.
However, it is worth pointing out in the interests of transparency that Council’s definition of what it terms “the Gully Community” is unknown. It is believed to be only Aboriginal people and of those only those holding local Gundungurra ancestry and of those only a select few and mostly a select group of women of Gundungurra descent. This suits Council bureaucracy – compliant ‘Yes Folk’ to do Council bureacracy’s bidding secretively behind closed doors.
So in October 2021 just gone, following Council bureaucracy’s selective and secretive consultation process, the latest Plan of Management for The Gully has been finalised. This is plan No. 19. But worse, it’s just a plan on paper and follows a sad Council legacy of precious little actioned implementation. This latest plan has an unbudgeted pie-in-the-sky cost estimate of a whopping $4,742,910 (see summary cost table on page 113 of the 20121 Plan below in this article under ‘Further Reading’). The focus group consultants must have had their all wish lists out and fueled by a huge budget and extended timeframe. Council’s outlay for its review process of the 2004 Plan has not been made public – $250,000 perhaps or more?
The Habitat Advocate based within The Gully Catchment in Katoomba, is in possession of both the glossy printed version of the document ‘The Gully Aboriginal Place Plan of Management‘ dated 4th October 2021 of some 145 pages, as well as the digital version of the same title. The latter we provide a full copy at the end of this article under ‘Further Reading‘ publically available for free to download and print by anyone. The Gully is after all is gazetted ‘Community (public) Land’, so its plan is by extension, public, not restricted by Council’s presumptive copyrighting.
Council claims that it “consulted extensively in preparation of the Draft Plan of Management (POM), including with Gully families, at NAIDOC week, and with the broader community through an online survey over a period of four months. The public exhibition of the Draft POM is an important part of community consultation and was open for a period of 60 days, longer than is required (42 days) under the legislation (Local Government Act and Crown Lands Management Act 2016). The public exhibition period was advertised via media and advertising and closed on 26 July 2021.”
However, once again as in the past, Council’s consultation process was both selective and controlled. Council only allowed and heard what it wanted to hear.
A. Blue Mountains Council’s Selective Consultation
In this review process, Council partnered with two favoured groups, being ‘The Gully Traditional Owners Inc.‘ (membership is not publicly available) and ‘The Gully Cooperative Management Committee‘ (membership is not publicly available). It is understood that the membership make up of both groups may well be dominated by the same few select individuals. It is for Blue Mountains Council to disclosed this given that The Gully, whilst in part respected as an Aboriginal Place under the NPWS Act 1974, remains gazatted as Community (public) Lands.
B. Blue Mountains Council’s Controlled Consultation
Between 2017 and 2021 Council published its review of its 2004 Plan of Management. It published a webpage on the Internet, a subdomain ^https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/gully-plan It ran a series of advertisements in the Blue Mountains regional Gazette newspaper and posted a number of physical signs around The Gully valley like the one below. Council termed this its Exhibition Period.
However, all contributions from locals and the broader community was funmelled by Council compulsorily to the above webpage and to be submitted to Council via an online form. In this way, Council could avoid genuine face-to-face dialogue with the interested community.
NOTE: ‘Have Your Say’ is simply outsourced software that is designed for community engagement, so that Council management and staff don’t have to. ‘Engagement Hub’ is one such software product.
And remember that the NSW Government pandemic lockdown which outlawed normal human face-to face conversation had not taken effect until March 2020. In this way, Council sought to deliberately avoid genuine and open community exchange and conversation on The Gully and of Council’s intentions for The Gully. Such aloof and tokenistic ‘community consultation’ by Council bureaucracy sadly has become the norm by what ought to be local council in power to representative oof local community interests and values.
Council claims that it has undertaken comprehensive “stakeholder engagement” as part ensuring community participation in the preparation of Plans of Management for this community land known as The Gully. However, Council’s communications and engagement was restricted to “Aboriginal families of former Gully residents and their descendants, NAIDOC Week participants in The Gully (2018), and to people who visit and use The Gully through the Have Your Say survey. The latter was an online form for one way input, not dialogue, and not a forum.
Instead of Council reviewing the 2004 and its implementation or otherwise, Council ignored the 2004 Plan and instead focused on the view of stakeholders on:
What’s important?
What needs to be protected?
How should be The Gully be in the future?
Council bureaucracy’s planning framework and scope for reviewing the 2004 Plan was conveniently restricted to its formal relationship with The Gully Traditional Owners Inc. and within The Gully Cooperative Management Agreement.
According to Council’s Gully Plan webpage “decisions on whether a suggestion can be included in the Plan of Management (for 2021) is measured against the core cultural values of The Gully as an Aboriginal Place, and whether the ideas are supportive of these core values. The outcome of this consultation is presented in Chapter 5 of the Draft Plan of Management Talking with the Community. A complete summary of is presented in Talking with the Community Stakeholder Engagement Report – The Gully Aboriginal Place Katoomba.”
Notably input from the broader community and non-Aboriginal ‘stakeholders’ who inputed via Council’s outsourced ‘Have Your Say’ online form and was deliberately excluded.
There was one other public forum offered by Council, its ‘Public Hearing‘ so-called staged by Council staff and management on Saturday 7th August 2021 by means of online forum via Zoom meeting software.
This public hearing had in the lead up been promoted by Council as to focus on The Gully’s Plan of Management review. Keenly, almost 70 individual members of the community enrolled to contribute to the public hearing.
However from the outset of the Zoom meeting, Council’s outsourced consultant Ms Sandy Hoy was quick to disappoint. Ms Hoy is principal director of the planning consultancy firm Parkland Planners based in Freshwater on Sydney’s northern beaches – once again Council goes off-Mountains to source its consultants.
The so-called ‘public hearing’ was distinctly an online forum NOT to discuss the plan of Management, but rather for participants to input into Council’s alternative piece of legislation – Council’s ‘ The Gully Aboriginal Place Proposed Recategorisation of Community Land July 2021‘.
So as toward the end of October 2021, with submissions received, Council declared “The Exhibition period for the Draft Plan of Management has now closed”.
Council’s final recategorisation document for 2021 was subsequently renamed thus:
This is a sneaky and mischievous Council that has form back to 1989 and indeed back to 1957 when it bulldozed Aboriginal settlements in The Gully.
So this is The Gully Plan 2021, number 19 no less – again set for filing by Council bureaucracy for another decade or so.
The Gully’s Plan of Pretense No.19.
And Council Propaganda on all this?
“Thank you to everyone who took the time to make a submission. All submissions will be analysed and carefully considered as part of the consultation process. Recommended amendments to the Draft Plan of Management will be conveyed to the Councillors when the Final Plan of Management is prepared for adoption. This is currently anticipated to be at the 26 October 2021 Council meeting.
So contradictorily, on the one hand Council bureaucray’s public hearing staged on Saturday 7th August 2021 was promoted on its flyer to discuss and input into the 2021 Plan of Management,. But then on the day of the ‘public hearing’ up front Council’s consultant Sandy Hoy instructed all participants that this was NOT to be the focus of the hearing, but purely on some other obscure document about Council’s land recategorisation in The Gully and somehown no related to the 2021 Plan. Then on Council’s website the comment above reads ..“Thank you to everyone who took the time to make a submission. All submissions will be analysed and carefully considered as part of the consultation process. Recommended amendments to the Draft Plan of Management will be conveyed to the Councillors when the Final Plan of Management is prepared for adoption.”
How deceptively mischievous of Council’s community consultative process!
Other points noted on Council’s webpage on The Gully:
Council’s community consultation has concluded with The Gully’s plan version dated 4th October 2021.
The Gully Aboriginal Place PoM 2021 was endorsed at the Council meeting 26th October 2021.
The Gully Aboriginal Place 2021 Plan of Management was formerly adopted 28 Oct 2021
Council claims that “there are no proposals to sell off, or develop, any bushland or public land within the Gully for private housing. The Gully is comprised of Council Community land and Crown land classified as Public recreation reserve, as well as a number of Council and Crown road reserve. In regards to concerns focused on the parcels of 38-46 Gates Avenue:
The 5 parcels of land of 38-46 Gates Avenue are not within the Gully Aboriginal Place area as Gazetted in 2002. The Gully Draft PoM has been updated to include all and only land within the Gully AP area. Hence these parcels were not included in the revised PoM.
The Gully Draft PoM does not propose any change to the classification of Council community land within the Gully AP, (or for 38-46 Gates Avenue). Changes from Community land to Operational Land is a separate process and would require revision of the Local Environmental Plan (LEP).
There are no proposed changes to the land classification, or land categories of the land parcels of 38-46 Gates Avenue. They remain classified at Council Community (13/1-4/L1/2059) and Operational land (13/5/L1/2059) and remain categorised Natural Area Bushland.
As for point 4, this is contrary to the land categorisation mapping in the 2004 Plan. Compare the following two maps of land categorisation. The first map is in the 2004 Plan on page 7. The second one is the 2021 Plan on page 25. Spot the notable differences – the many bushland parcels missing from the 2021 map, notably the 5 parcels of land of 38-46 Gates Avenue on the corer of Peckmans Road near the Aquatic Centre.
Council has form over many decades in re-categorising Community Land to Operation Land under its custodianship – Hat Hill Airstrip, Wentworth Falls Golf Course, …
[2] Council’s Gully Plan, ^https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/gully-plan [Editor’s note: This outsourced webpage link is likely to be deleted by Council soon, given that its ‘consultation process’ has concluded]
This was the May 2022 draft, however on this website we include Blue Mountains {city} Council’s complete final version dated 4th October 2022, which numbers 145 pages. Click our internal website link below to download a PDF copy of this entire Gully Plan of Management 2021 (Final), ^https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/The-Gully-POM-4-Oct-2021.pdf
Local residents in and around The Gully water catchment area situated on the western side of the rural township of Katoomba may be astounded by the following truths we at The Habitat Advocate have gleamed of late about Blue Mountains Council’s legacy of plans for The Gully.
An analysis by our editor into the archival records maintained by The Habitat Advocate reveals that this current report/plan by Blue Mountains Council entitled The Gully Aboriginal Place Draft Plan of Management dated 7th May 2021 is actually Plan Number 19. There could well be more out there.
Don’t believe it? Well we have a copy of almost every one of the nineteen reports, and these are just the ones we know about. This revelation comes after being a member of one of the longest lasting environmental groups in the Blue Mountains region, ‘The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.’ which lasted for 28 years initially forming informally in 1988 to protest and lobby against the Catalina Raceway from 1988 incensed by Bob Jane’s helicopter buzzing low over residents’ homes around what was then Catalina Park. Over the span of half a lifetime, The Friends fought many a campaign against a host of environmental threats to the valley/gully and amassed a considerable record of material during that period.
The following is our list of the planning reports into The Gully:
List of Plans for The Gully, so far…
Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study A & B (date TBA)
FWP – ‘Bushland Management and Report’, (date TBA)
Frank Walford Park Master Plan for Development 1955 (car racetrack), by Katoomba Municipal Council
Draft Assessment of Frank Walford Park, Katoomba – Land Suitability, Environmental Constraints, circa 1980
Frank Walford Park Management Plan 1981, 54 pages
Katoomba Falls Creek Valley by Neil Stuart (provided to Wentworth Falls TAFE Library on special reserve), 1988 and revised in 1991
Katoomba Falls Reserve Draft Plan of Management, Volume 1, by Mandis Roberts Consultants for Blue Mountains City Council and the NSW Department of Lands, April 1990 (possibly a Volume 2 as well)
Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study – Part 1 (Draft Report and Management Plan of 87 pages) and Part 2 (Technical Reports, Data and Analysis of 55 pages) by Fred Bell of F.& J. Bell and Associates Pty Ltd and Dr Val Attenbrow, June 1993
The Gully Archaeological Grant Project, 16th August 1995
‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Draft Plan of Management – Main Report’, by Des Brady of Connell Wagner Pty Ltd, of approximately 150 pages, April 1996
Frank Walford Park Plan of Management, December 1998
Upper Kedumba Valley, Katoomba – Report on the cultural significance of Upper Kedumba Valley for declaration as an Aboriginal Place prepared by Dianne Johnson with Dawn Colless for NPWS, 162 pages, 3rd July 2000
Draft Katoomba-Leura Vegetation Management Plan by Blue Mountains City Council, December 2000, 46 pages,
Upper Kedumba River Valley Plan of Management (The Gully Aboriginal Place – Council Revised Edition, (Spiral Bound, 105 pages) by Environmental Partnership, February 2004
Final Report for Sydney Catchment Authority – Catchment & Improvement Grant No. 44 Upper Kedumba River Vallkey, prepared by members of Kedumba Creek Bushcare 7 Blue Mountains City Council March 2005, 27 pages.
A Heritage Study of the Gully Aboriginal Place, Katoomba, New South Wales by Allan Lance of Heritage Consulting Australia Pty Ltd August 2005 (2 versions – a detailed confidential version for the local Aboriginal peoples and a second summary version for Blue Mountains City Council, 113 pages)
Construction Environmental Management Plan – Blue Mountains Sewer Trunk Mains Amplification: Upper Kedumba River Valley, South Katoomba Sewerage Catchment by Total Earth Care Pty Ltd for Sydney Water and Blue Mountains City Council, 17th October 2007, approximately 50 pages.
Reconnecting to Country – Progress Report #2 by Rouse Water, Council, Gully Traditional Owners, Sustainable Futures Australia, Widjabul Custodians, September 2009. (possibly a Progress Report #1 as well)
The Gully Aboriginal Place Draft Plan of Management 7th May 2021, by Soren Mortensen and Brad Moore, Blue Mountains City Council, 142 pages.
As Council currently prepares its final version of its 2021 plan version for The Gully, the obvious critique we posit to Council is that it is about time Council actually focuses on implementing its plans rather repeatedly spending money having more plans written.
We point out that the only plan on The Gully that Council has funded out of its budget (ratepayers’ money) and not from external grants was the construction of the racetrack in 1959. And then the funding was a loan to the then Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Ltd, a collection of wealthy local business men who persuaded Council to bulldoze the homes of the poor residents so they could race cars on a new racing circuit.
Catalina Park Raceway operated officially from 1961 to 1971 when the organisation running it, the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers Club went into liquidation.
Council’s loan was in excess of £20,000 (say a conservative $40,000 equivalent at the time, since at the Australian government’s switch to decimal currency back in 1966 set the conversion rate of $2 to being equivalent to £1 (Australian).
[SOURCE: Minutes of Special Meeting of the Council (duly convened) , Tuesday 13th day of January 1959, page 8, Item 45, signed as validated by the Mayor and Town Clerk and verbatim thus:
“Car Racing Track – Catalina Park, Katoomba. Page A12 Town Clerk’s Report.
Resolved on the motion of Alderman K. Smith and W. Smith that consideration be given when dealing with the Loan Estimates for 1959/60 to the inclusion of an amount of about £20,000 for the construction of a blacktopped surface to the racing track and the provision of adequate safety fencing.”
In today’s value that $40 000 would be valued at about $700,000 in today’s money in 2022. That budget excludes the costs of Council’s contracted bulldozer work to demolishing The Gully homes, then grade the new racetrack circuit, or the deforestation, or the construction of the changing sheds beside the lake, or the red brick toilet block inside the track circuit, or the addition of the dirt Rallycross circuit or the other racing infrastructure.
That ratepayer loan by Council to the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Ltd was never repaid. The opportunity cost of ratepayers’ wealth for more vital needs of the Blue Mountains would have been considerable. It was an indulgence by certain councillors and their wealthy business mates and off-Mountains petrol heads to provide an exclusive hobby. It was all bugger The Gully residents and the surrounding local residents with the decades of thunderous racetrack noise in the process. Whilst the official racing ended in 1971, unofficial racing continued to 2002 when The Gully was gazetted an Aboriginal Place. But the illegal motor racing persisted for another three years until up to December 2005 – The Habitat Advocate as a local has records to support this.
Irresponsibly, council management and councillors at the time were mindful of Council’s massively over-indebtedness to the tune of £155,460 (excluding Electricity debts). Records show that Council at the time had been threatened by legal action to withdraw its claim for loan recovery. So likely due to Council’s then dire indebtedness at the time, Council cowered, backed off and wrote off racing track loan to its business mates.
The Gully in Katoomba – yet another vacuous draft Plan of Management by Council, 7 May 2021
A Brief Background
Back in 2004 a Plan of Management was published for The Gully in Katoomba by its government custodial owner Blue Mountains Council (Council). This followed three years of Council delegating an off-Mountains consulting firm ‘Environmental Partnership‘ (Ultimo-based) to research and draft an expensive and length report of some 105 pages.
This 2004 Plan followed a host of previous studies, reviews and reports including ‘The Bell Report’ of 1993 – its correct title being ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study‘ of some 87 pages undertaken by environmental consultants F. & J. Bell and Associates Pty Ltd. This plan in 1993 had been commissioned by local Katoomba environmental activist group ‘The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.‘ (1989-2016) thanks to a $10,000 government grant which was the cost of this very details and independent study into Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, which was Council’s official name of The Gully at the time. For more information on this study please refer to the Further Reading reference section at the end of this article.
The Gully’s evolving names
Note that the term ‘The Gully‘ was first officially applied to this creek valley in Katoomba by Council in the 2004 Plan of Management. This is the 2004 Plan -was ridiculously long title of 16 words verbatim as:
‘UPPER KEDUMBA RIVER VALLEY Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within “The Gully” Aboriginal Place’.
Put that up your jumper! Here’s the original for reading, download and printing in the public domain:
It followed That draft document was entitled, which is an affectionate term used by former residents and their descendants from the 1950s and generation prior. Other terms for The Gully have been:
‘Blacks Camp‘ (a colonial disparaging term [1870s up to the 1950s] as cited in the book ‘Artificial Horizon – Imagining the Blue Mountains’, p.198, by Martin Thomas, 2004) (being the northern section)
‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley‘ (being the entire 70+ hectare creek valley of riparian bushland area still not yet sold off by Council for housing)
‘Frank Walford Park‘ (being also the northern section)
‘Walford Park’ (being also the northern section without Cr Walford’s first name ‘Frank’)
‘McRae’s (horse) Paddock‘ (being the central section)
‘Selby Street Reserve‘ (being the central section’s eastern side watercourse creek gully from a spring at now Hinkler Park)
‘Katoomba Falls Reserve Cascades section‘ (being the same central section’s eastern side watercourse creek gully from a spring at now Hinkler Park)
‘Catalina Park‘ (being the northern section named by Council in the late 1950s on behalf of the Blue Mountains Sporting Car Club Ltd)
‘Upper Kedumba River Valley‘ (being the entire creek valley as renamed by Council in 2002)
‘Katoomba Falls Reserve’ (being the southern section dominated by two grass ovals named by Council)
‘The Gully Aboriginal Place‘ (being a lesser portion of the entire 70+ hectare creek valley of riparian bushland, since many bushblocks of what as Community Land has been sold off for housing, or else rezoned or proposed for rezoning so that Council’s coffers can be boosted by land sales for more housing)
‘Garguree‘ is apparently a regional Gundungurra Aboriginal word meaning ‘gully’ which was purportedly provided by a local historian into Blue Mountains Aboriginal heritage Jim Smith PhD acting as a consultant to The Gully Traditional Owners (group) circa 2007.
Of note, two significant side watercourse gullies flowing into The Gully from the west are excluded from The Gully’s geographic scope by Council’s mapping.
One side watercourse flows into The Gully through a very large bushland/riparian zone side gully having a land title address of 21 Stuarts Road, Katoomba. The second to the south flows through what was clear-felled bushland/riparian zone and then bulldozed, graded and fertilized into the now defunct Katoomba Golf Course which Council had backed financially. This year the site of the old Katoomba Golf Course is being prepared by Council, external consultants again enticing two universities to develop it as believe it or not a ‘Planetary Health Leadership Centre‘ – how hypocritical on a site of ecological destruction!
Recalling the 2004 Plan of Management and its drafting, despite many efforts by locals expressing a keen desire to constructively engage with Council to provide input into this Plan, Council arrogantly shunned these requests, so very little local community consultation went into this 2004 Plan.
On page 101 under the sub-heading ‘Review of the plan of management‘ it reads as follows:
“It was the intention of the authors (Environmental Partnership) that the progress of implementation should be assessed by Council on an annual basis in terms of the performance measures described in Table 7 and updated or reviewed as appropriate. It was also outlined in the plan of management that a more comprehensive review should be made after five years to assess the effectiveness of the plan and need for review.”
This is the Table 7:
Well, neither the annual assessment of progress nor the five year review took place. None of the core objectives has been achieved by Council since 2004 (nor prior from the Bell Report of 1993) and it is now 2021.
From our experience over the past twenty years as local activists to save and protect the ecology of The Gully, Council’s ongoing neglect and abuse of The Gully has persisted and particularly Council management’s disdain for local Bushcare volunteers to altruistically request Council to commit to caring for and rehabilitating The Gully’s natural ecology after decades of harm.
It has taken until 2017 for Council to finally get around to reviewing its 2004 Plan of Management after some thirteen years, because Council was legally required to undertake a formal review of the 2004 Plan of Management – still pending in 2021…
“in accordance with the requirements of the Local Government Act 1993 (NSW) and the Crown Land Management Act 2016, and the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) Declared Aboriginal Place Guidelines for Development Management Plans.”
The 2021 Plan has been prepared by Council’s contracted Environmental Planning Officer Soren Mortensen and Council’s Aboriginal Community Development Officer Brad Moore is vastly different to the 2004 plan. However a quick comparison of the 2004 Plan and the current 2012 draft Plan reveals that most of 2004 Plan’s 105 pages have been ignored in the 2012 draft plan. The current 2012 draft plan reads more like a cultural document borrowed from elsewhere and applied to The Gully instead of being as a place-based plan of management for a natural place as is the 2004 plan.
Our concerns about Council’s proposed “Re-categorisation” of ‘Community Land’ in The Gully
After 20 years experience in trying to consult with Blue Mountains Council about The Gully (respecting this valley, caring for this valley and rehabilitating the valley’s neglected and abused ecology) we have learned not to trust Council management.
Whilst The Habitat Advocate is receptive to Council’s proposed reclassification of the current Council-owned community land specifically and only to the defunct Catalina Raceway from being a ‘Sportsground’ to being a ‘Natural Area’, this proposed reclassification is noticeably absent in the Table 2 on page 14 (copy below) of the ‘Background Information document supplied. The relevant column headed ‘Proposed Categories’ in the table is blank (“-“). Is this an oversight or intentional?
History is history, and the impost of the racetrack and motocross circuit in the northern section of The Gully back in 1957 involved Council’s forced eviction of numerous poor residents from their simple bush homes, including the violent demolition of their homes by mechanical excavators. The racetrack remnants remain since the track was ultimately shut down to vehicles permanently in 2003. We consider it is important the history of the racetrack and this traumatic story is not lost to current and future generations.
We are opposed to the remnants of the bitumen racetrack being destroyed by any excavation works, but rather the track be allowed to be significantly narrowed in width, and to be maintained to facilitate passive recreation use for following purposes:
On-Leash Dog Walking (NOT off-leash and no more mass gatherings of many dogs like the RSPCA’s annual Millions Paws Walk event that invaded The Gully back in May 2004)
Individual Cycling (NOT large groups of cyclists or organised cycling events)
Fire Truck Emergency Access (track to a maximum width of 4 metres wide) in order to facilitate the extinguishing of a bushfire (NOT RFS bush arson/‘hazard reduction’). NB. The original racetrack width was at least 10 metres wide and has since has the natural bushland retake the invasive bitumen.
Other Passive Uses – such as interpretation and for cultural purposes by the local Aboriginal peoples.
However, we are otherwise opposed to Council’s proposed reclassification of the Council-owned community land in The Gully because there are numerous land parcels shown in the supplied mapping on Page 16 (copy below) that indicate their removal from the current community land categorisation shown on page 15 (copy below). The fear is that this removal will result in Council’s selling the excludes land parcels for housing development and so again profiteer from The Gully as it has in the past.
We also opposed Council’s proposed reclassification because the supplied mapping scale (approx. 1:10,000) is too small a scale ratio to read and to discern the boundary changes accurately. A more readable map scale ration would be 1:5,000 and we request that Council provide this to all registered stakeholders included in:
Council’s Public Hearing for Proposed Re-categorisation of Community Land in The Gully (2021)
Council’s supplied mapping is also obscure. Whereas the supplied map for the current categorisation (Figure 3 on page 15) is cadastral (that is, shows land parcels) and is overlayed with colour-coded categorisations; the supplied map for Council’s proposed re-categorisations is an aerial photo with the colour-coding overlay in heavy bold which makes it impossible to read accurately. The comparisons between the two map styles are also difficult to discern.
Council’s exclusion of multiple bushland sites from ‘Community Land’ status (protection)
Based upon a quick comparison of the two maps, we have concern for the following identified land parcel proposed for removal from current Council –owned Community Land included within The Gully Aboriginal Place, and we ask Council what it the justification and have explanation before this 2021 Draft Plan of Management goes before Council to be approved.
This site is the bushland block across the road from the Katoomba Sports and Aquatic Centre which covers about a hectare at address 34-46 Gates Avenue.
This natural bushland block significantly represents one of the last natural landscapes interconnecting The Gully between the northern section and the central section. It must be naturally preserved intact as part of The Gully’s Community Land zoning (land categorisation).
Close inspection of Council’s proposed re-categorisation of Community Land map, shows that this site has been excluded from Council’s Community Land in The Gully Aboriginal Place. The logical presumption is that Council intend to rezone it ‘Operation Land’ so Council can then legally sell the hectare off to private land use developers into for or five housing lots. So the bushland gets bulldozed and Council management profiteer with a million dollar bounty.
On the above bases, we reject Council’s current (2021) proposed re-categorisation of Council-owned community land in the Gully.
Our concerns above were contributed by The Habitat Advocate to Council in its dedicated Public Hearing held via Zoom online software on Saturday 7th August 2021 as well as with a follow up email dated 12th August 2021 to Council’s delegated Environmental Planning Officer Soren Mortensen. However, no acknowledgement of that email has been received from Council.
We have sourced land title mapping of The Gully Water Catchment from Google Maps dated 2021. There are six maps that cover the water catchment extent of The Gully extending from the Cox’s watershed (Great Western Highway) in the north, down through what was Frank Walford Park and Catalina Raceway, as well as the side watercourse through Selby Reserve (from Hinker Park), and the two watercourses that flow from the west and then to Katoomba Falls Reserve and to Katoomba Falls itself.
We have compared Council’s proposed land re-categorisation map (Figure 4 above) with the land titles on these six mapped sections from Google Maps, and placed an ‘X’ on each identified the land parcel that are bushland within The Gully but which have been excluded in Council proposed recategorisation.
Not all these bushland lots are Community Land, but many are. Bushland and swampland land parcels that are categorised by Council as ‘Community Land’ are generally protected from land use development. However those bushland and swampland land parcels that are excluded from Council’s colouring in Figure 3 above, are NOT protected. Council could then easily rezone them as ‘Operation Land’ which is the next stage before selling them off for housing development. Council has a record or doing this throughout the Blue Mountains local government area over decades, including on the periphery of the Gully.
What we wish to illustrate here in these six maps is the scale to which the bushland amenity risks being destroyed for likely housing development and so alter the natural amenity of The Gully forever.
Each map below is in Adobe Acrobat (PDF). We allow for each map to be zoomed into so as to enable enlarging the map on the screen via Google Docs (free software), as well to be downloaded and printed.
[1] The Gully Report No. 8, ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study‘, published in 1993, by F.J. Bell and Associates Pty Ltd, (Fred Bell), Sutherland NSW, contains 87 pages in A4 spiral softcover binding, (available internally on this website) >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/gully-report-no-8-the-bell-report-of-1993/
Excavator in The Gully getting stuck in with Council approval. We don’t forget. This is comparable of how Council forcibly evicted the original residents back in 1957. (Photo by Editor Sunday 17th February 2008).
The Gully: Blue Mountains {city} Council’s notice of an updated Plan of Management for its 2004 plan, being on public exhibition in 2021. It was only 7 years overdue.
Council’s current review of The Gully Plan of Management (2004) has been undertaken over the past five years between 2017 and 2021. Council has published four key reports in this review process currently published on Council’s webpage: https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/gully-plan
These four key reports are as follows:
Report A: Upper Kedumba River Valley – Plans of Management (revised edition 2004)
Report C: Public Hearing for Proposed Recategorisation of Community Land in The Gully Aboriginal Place (July 2021)
Report D: The Gully Aboriginal Place Draft Plan of Management (7th May 2021)
We anticipate that Council’s above outsourced ‘yoursay…’ webpage will likely be publicly available only for the duration of Council’s current review process, then it will be deleted by Council soon after Council’s review process has concluded. So in the local community interest, since these reports and their research have been both publicly funded and concern a public place ‘The Gully’ in Katoomba, we herein provide an enduring online record for the interested public.
Each of these reports are provided below as links to the same reports stored internally on our website in Adobe Acrobat format and available to the public to download and to print…
A: Upper Kedumba River Valley – Plans of Management (revised edition 2004)
D: The Gully Aboriginal Place Draft Plan of Management (Report dated 7th May 2021)
Preparation of this draft document was partly funded by Blue Mountains Council and supplemented by the NSW Government out of its ‘NSW Heritage Grants – Aboriginal Heritage Projects’ in 2017-2018 from NSW taxpayer funding, that is, by the wider general community.
This draft document comprises some 140 pages with an Adobe Acrobat file size of 22 MB. So for community access and download convenience, we have divided the original document into smaller sections in order via hyperlinks internally within our website to sections in Adobe Acrobat format, each of which is downloadable to the general public in perpetuity. We consider this is in the public interest since the community lands concerned within The Gully are publicly owned through Council and the draft plan has also been public funded.
‘Blue Mountains Council* ‘has prepared a Draft Plan of Management (PoM) for The Gully Aboriginal Place in accordance with the requirements of the Local Government Act 1993 and the Crown Land Management Act 2016, and Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) Declared Aboriginal Places Guidelines for Developing Management Plans.
The Draft Plan of Management updates the 2004 Plans of Management for Upper Kedumba River Valley, covering the Blue Mountains City Council managed community lands within The Gully including Frank Walford Park 2003, Katoomba Falls Reserve McRae¡¦s Paddock Section and Katoomba Falls Reserve Cascades Section 2003. The draft 2021 Plan of Management for The Gully includes the addition of three parcels of Crown land, covering all public land within The Gully Aboriginal Place.
Council has placed The Gully Aboriginal Place Draft Plan of Management on public exhibition for comment until Monday 26 July 2021. The Draft Plan of Management is available to view online at the Blue Mountains City Council website https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/gully-plan
The existing community land categories (as defined under Section 36 of the Local Government Act 1993) over Council managed land are being amended to:
Remove the Sportsground category over the race track in Frank Walford Park to be replaced by the Natural Area category;
Reflect changes in boundaries between the Park and General Community Use categories in Frank Walford Park;
Reflect an update to vegetation mapping within the Natural Area category in Frank Walford Park, McRae’s Paddock and Katoomba Falls Reserve.
The proposed recategorisation of these parts of The Gully Aboriginal Place is set out in the Draft Plan of Management and in Section 3 of this document.’
NOTE 2: We do not expect that Council’s above hyperlink will last for very long, hence why we have downloaded Council’s’ publicly funded documents to our website in the public interest.
* NOTE 2: The Habitat Advocate disagrees with Council’s propaganda to incorporate the word ‘City’ into its organisational title.
Katoomba Falls Creek (in 2002 Council unilaterally renamed the creek ‘Upper Kedumba River’)
Community Consultation Restricted (yet again)
Council’s chosen community consultation process continues to be restricted on a one-way basis. Members of the community only have the choice of the following one-way communication means:
C. In writing by post to Blue Mountains City Council, Locked Bag 1005, KATOOMBA NSW 2780 Attention: Andrew Johnson/Soren Mortensen
No public forum either face-to face or online was offered by Council to the general community. The only public forum offered by Council to the general community was a Public Hearing held on Saturday 8th August 2021 (1pm-3pm). This hearing took place via Zoom meeting software in compliance with the NSW Government’s public health order social lockdown in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
However, this ‘public hearing’ did not address this Draft Plan of Management, but was instead strictly limited to Council’s proposed re-categorisation of various land parcels throughout The Gully gazetted as ‘Council-owned Community Land‘.
The only material provided by Council on this specific sub-topic was a table and two tiny maps. This was not made clear in advance to the community participants (which numbered just 32).
The material relevant to the public hearing was actually not part of the Draft Plan of Management, but in a quite separate document entitled ‘Public Hearing For Proposed Recategorisation of Community Land in The Gully Aborigional Pace – Background Information‘, dated July 2021. This hearing was only offered by Council only because legally Council had to comply with Section 40A of the Local Government Act 1993, which as at 10th June 2021 reads as follows:
‘LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1993 – SECT 40A: Public hearing in relation to proposed plans of management
(1) The council must hold a public hearing in respect of a proposed plan of management (including a plan of management that amends another plan of management) if the proposed plan would have the effect of categorising, or altering the categorisation of, community land under section 36(4).
(2) However, a public hearing is not required if the proposed plan would merely have the effect of altering the categorisation of the land under section 36(5).
(3) A council must hold a further public hearing in respect of the proposed plan of management if–
(a) the council decides to amend the proposed plan after a public hearing has been held in accordance with this section, and
(b) the amendment of the plan would have the effect of altering the categorisation of community land under section 36(4) from the categorisation of that land in the proposed plan that was considered at the previous public hearing.’
Katoomba Falls
The Gully’s Plan of Pretense No.19.
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