Issue 131 December 5, 2017
Your independent community newspaper - Ph: 4325 7369
Council aims to change rail facility location to Warnervale despite key contract being let T
ransport for NSW will receive a letter from Central Coast Council requesting that the site of the rail maintenance facility for the Central Coast be changed from Kangy Angy to Warnervale.
However, Parliamentary Secretary for the Central Coast, Mr Scot MacDonald, said work on the facility at Kangy Angy would begin in early 2018 to prepare for the arrival of the state-of-the-art $2.3 billion New Intercity Fleet. “We have awarded a key contract for the detailed design and construction of the new maintenance facility to service trains at Kangy Angy,” Mr MacDonald said. “Infrastructure and property group, John Holland, will now begin pre-construction activities, with major construction expected to start early in 2018.” “The project is expected to generate 300 jobs on the Central Coast, including local apprenticeships, during construction, and 200 jobs ongoing, once in
operation.” In 2014, a Transport NSW consultant report recommended that land adjacent to Link Rd, Warnervale, was the ideal site for the facility instead of the current location at Kangy Angy. Mayor Jane Smith said Council was supportive of a rail maintenance facility for the local jobs that it would create, but wanted to ensure that it was in the right location on the Central Coast. “Warnervale is where the growth on the Coast
Flood prone land under water at Kangy Angy will be, where there is Ms Susan Zaranja said the space and industrial she believed the recentlyland to accommodate elected Councillors a facility of this size and had been mandated to scale,” Mayor Jane Smith seriously consider the will said. of the electorate. “The State Government She said to have has changed its mind on transparency of operation other key issues for the within Council was both State, and we are asking laudable and essential. for them to make the right With that in mind, she decision for the Central said she believed the Coast,” she said. community considered Two members of the it essential that the new Kangy Angy Residents’ Central Coast Council Action Group (KARAG) review the decisions addressed the Council of the previous Wyong meeting on November 27, Council, and called the in favour of the Mayoral selection of Kangy Angy Minute. for the proposed NSW
Government inter-city fleet rail maintenance facility a “hot spot” worthy of review. She said the selection of Kangy Angy was riddled “with inconsistencies and obfuscations from the word go” and was “not fit for purpose, compared with the eminent suitability of Warnervale”. Issues including unsuitable topography, the volume of infill required, flooding issues, the need to build a $50 million bridge, difficulties in finding a solid base for the required footings,
along with the threat to rare and endangered species, and the close proximity to existing residents, made the site unsuitable. “Warnervale has none of these problems, so it beggars belief why Kangy Angy has favour over Warnervale,” she said. “There will undoubtedly be serious repercussions for you to solve if this project goes ahead.” “Right a terrible wrong that has been committed. “We need you to stand up and take the necessary steps against this disaster. “If you achieve nothing else in your tenure, you will be worthy of our vote.” Mr Alton Caldersmith said: “Most of the Councillors here tonight were not part of the Council when the decision was made to recommend to the railways that they use Kangy Angy as the location.” Mr Caldersmith said that before Wyong Council intervention, Transport for NSW had decided the maintenance facility needed to be North of Wyong and South of Wyee.
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