Koala News
Skyline Road - Upgrade to take 7 years?
Lismore City Council plans to spend $440,000 on the proposed Skyline - Durheim Road upgrade in the next financial year, to realign the sharp bends,
leaving the road unsealed (business paper for the June 11th meeting, p4). I asked two questions about this at a recent Lismore City Council meeting:
Where was the balance of the $2.07million (estimated cost of the complete upgrade) coming from?...and
When would the entire upgrade be completed?
I was told the completion depended on funding, and at present the only sources of funding were from the Roads budget (maximum of $200,000 each year)
to be matched each year by funds from the Section 94 funds (until the $667,000 available from this source is used up). By my reckoning this would mean the
upgrade would be carried out in stages over seven years, to be completed in 2009. When I stood up to have this clarified I was told I had already had a
turn and could not ask any more questions (although there was still time left in public question time, and no one else seemed to be wanting to ask questions).
Cr Roberts then intervened and requested that I be allowed to ask my questions - thanks Cr Roberts! A discussion then ensured about the $200,000 limit
as $250, 000 had been allocated for some items in the budget. It was agreed the official limit was $200,000. Nothing seems to have been done about the budget
items in excess of this amount, so maybe larger amounts will be allowed in the future.
After this discussion there was what I took as general acquiescence (nodding of heads and some mumbling) to my question of would it take 5 or 6 years?
So where does this leave the koalas? Five or six years until the fenced underpasses, chicanes and speed warning signs are in place?
Recent media statements have indicated that the Lismore City Council is doing all that is requested by NPWS regarding the upgrade under the Environmental
Planning and Assessment (EP&A) Act. However the Council is not considering the upgrade as a development under Part 4 of the EP&A Act, which invokes
the SEPP 44 legislation and a Koala Management Plan. This legislation was written especially for koalas and covers any road widening, realignment, or relocation
in core koala areas, such as the Skyline area. The Council is acting on legal advice that, by altering the road reserve (which was gazetted in mid 2000
at the instigation of the Council) the upgrade is NOT a widening, realignment, or relocation of the road (as the work will occur within the new road reserve)
and the special koala legislation can be bypassed. Our legal advice differs from that obtained by the Council, and we have along with several national conservation
groups, scientists and politicians requested a Commission of Inquiry to look into the legal issues and determine if the Council needs to follow Part 4 of
the Act to preserve one of the state's few remaining koala colonies.
As I have stated previously, the proposed upgrade along a major koala corridor will result in numerous road kills. This will impact on a large proportion
of the Lismore koala population, not just a few koalas living in the immediate vicinity. I believe this will result in the accelerated extinction of Lismore's
urban koalas within the next 5 to 10 years.
In the discussions about the upgrade, little consideration has been given to the future benefits to our children of having koalas in Lismore. If properly
developed, our children could benefit from a multi million dollar Eco-tourist industry centered around Lismore koalas, not to mention the intrinsic value
of living in one of the few places left in the world with unique wildlife in their backyards. I feel our koalas are too valuable an asset to be risked by
shortcuts in planning this road upgrade.
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