BATHURST Regional Council's general manager, David Sherley, has advised councillors that the threat of legal action isn't necessarily a strong argument for not sourcing a loan to fund construction of the go-kart track.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
On Wednesday night, council resolved to take out a $2.25 million loan for construction of the project, however that decision could be reversed if a group of councillors are successful in their rescission motion.
That rescission motion will be dealt with in an extraordinary council meeting on Thursday at 2.30pm.
During Wednesday's discussion, councillor Jess Jennings rhetorically asked the general manager "Who in their right mind would invest their own personal, hard earned money on a project, a house or investing in a business or a bit of land which had the same sort of risks attached to it as this is?".
This came after Mr Sherley had detailed actions that had been taken over a number of years to try to stop the go-kart track going ahead on Mount Panorama.
These included a threat of legal action from Wiradyuri elders, and Section 9 and Section 10 applications made under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, which are yet to be actioned.
Section 9s and 10s are applications made by or on behalf of an Aboriginal/s seeking the preservation or protection of a specified area from injury or desecration.
Instead of letting Cr Jennings' question hang in the air, Mr Sherley responded.
"The legal action is only a letter stating they don't want us to do anything, but there is no legal action. That doesn't mean it won't happen," he said.
"And the Section 9s and Sections 10s are open to all sorts of locations and I think if you decided that every time an application for an order was put on somewhere and therefore you wouldn't take any action, then you're not going to go anywhere.
"I'll use as a good example here, that one of the site cards that got registered for Bathurst is for every waterway, billabong, whether flowing or not flowing, 100 metres either side.
"So, if you said that we're going to have problems then you would basically say you are not going to do any developments within Bathurst anywhere near any of the river streams, as an example."
The other actions detailed by Mr Sherley have so far proven unsuccessful.
Formal complaints to the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) about council destroying artefacts were "thrown out", and in another situation to do with artefacts, the inquiry fell in council's favour.
A site card also failed to preclude council's activities as "it was only put in for something that occurred about two years ago".
