‘Back to the drawing board’: marine scientist criticises Salamander Bay Town Centre Place Plan

LAST month, Port Stephens Council (PSC) pledged not to build on the Mambo-Wanda Wetlands buffer zone as part of a revised Place Plan for the Salamander Bay Town Centre.

While the concession has been well-received by environmental groups, there are still unresolved concerns for the future of the wetlands.

Iain Watt, Marine Scientist and president of EcoNetwork Port Stephens, said that it was essential that Council put the environment before everything else.

“This is not anti-development,” said Mr Watt in an address to Council.

“Our economy is a direct expression of our ecology, not separate from it. Environmental primacy is not a constraint on prosperity – it is a precondition.”

While Mr Watt welcomed the move towards an ECO certification for Port Stephens, which Council recently undertook, he argued that it would be a meaningful change only if it was backed by genuine environmental primacy.

EcoNetwork is urging PSC to carefully consider the ways in which Port Stephens’ natural assets contribute to the area, and how they should be protected from their ongoing degradation.

Intact wetlands naturally provide environmental services such as flood and pollution control, sediment settlement and carbon sequestration; the cost for the installation of infrastructure performing the same functions could run well into the tens of millions.

Instead, the original Salamander Bay Town Centre Plan risked complete wetland collapse.

While PSC has argued to revise the plan to reduce its footprint, Mr. Watt suggested that the entire project needs to “go back to the drawing board,” and that housing “needs a paradigm shift”,

“I cannot see how the Salamander Bay Shopping Centre can ever be a town centre,” he told News of the Area.

“They seem to be in a headlong rush to meet housing goals, […] forgetting about the infrastructure that’s required. We all hear about the problem with the roads. They continue to allow larger and larger houses to get built, which need larger and larger trucks to drive on roads that were never designed for them. It’s a never-ending cycle.”

EcoNetwork has described the location of the Salamander Bay Shopping Centre as “urban sprawl with no real cohesion,” arguing that Nelson Bay already organically fulfills the function of town centre and is where tourists should be funneled into.

“Every family and the future generations will benefit from a protected, well-managed Mambo Wetland. It’s time to decide, once and for all, what this asset is really worth to us and protect it accordingly.”

By Nico LOMBARDO