Dear Editor,
Last Chance to Object to Cabonne Council on DA for a New Servo in Gaskill St!
Towards the end of 2019, forty Canowindra residents wrote to council expressing concern about the DA from Canowindra Petroleum Pty Ltd. Only one immediate neighbour of the site at 19-23 Gaskill Street was notified by letter about the DA.
Locals, not the council gave it publicity and council eventually put a copy of the voluminous DA up on its website. As a result of those objections, the developer’s consultants RJ Sinclair of Sydney have made substantial modifications to the plans in an attempt to satisfy those objections, in terms of signage, lighting, traffic/noise abatement, flooding of the site, and most importantly, heritage classification of the main street. Elements of the original consultant’s report appeared to have been cut and pasted from a DA for a similar project at Lismore!
There seems to be no independent assessment by council officers or council’s own consultants, including Mr David Scobie, council’s retained heritage consultant in Sydney. It reads as if Canowindra Petroleum’s consultants have been paid to write what they want council and we locals to believe. This is not good enough and it would be tragic if council sees fit to “bull-doze” through this DA without adequate public consultation. A show of hands at a meeting of the Canowindra Business and Progress Association this week indicated overwhelming objection to the DA.
Residents have until 6th February to write, or write again to council to lodge their objection to this proposal. Otherwise it is likely that council will give its approval claiming that all “due process” has been completed and that no law or regulation is broken by the approval. Will a new servo in Gaskill Street enhance the heritage listed streetscape and the general ambience of the town? I think not.
It would be better to plan a public park with access to the river bank to re-use that valuable space in the CBD.
Richard Statham