SAVE OUR COMMUNITY LAND - Welcome Park for the Bay?

While reviewing the draft Batemans Bay Master Plan, a number of residents were alarmed that it included the possible construction of high-rise commercial and residential buildings on the site of the old Batemans Bay Bowling Club on what has been, since 1918, community recreational land. A Eurobodalla Welcome Park Group has been formed to lobby Council to reconsider this proposal.

“The history of this site should guide its future use, and that should be its retention by the community as an open space,” said Neil Gow, Convenor of the Eurobodalla Welcome Park Group.

“It is surrounded by other key recreational areas, including the Mackay Park football facility and the Pavilion Aquatic and Arts Centre. Let’s keep the precinct for the enjoyment of the community”.

The Welcome Park Group believes that the site of the old Bowling Club, which runs along Princes Highway/Vesper Street, would serve the community’s best interest if it became a beautiful community park, a true gateway feature to welcome visitors to our Nature Coast and provide recreational activities for us all.

The site is bounded by the wetlands of McLeod’s Creek in the Clyde River Estuary. The mangroves, salt marshes and swamp oak floodplain forest are of high conservation value and classed under NSW legislation as threatened and protected ecological communities.

As community land, the site would blend into and help protect these wetlands, and allow Smoke Point and the Pavilion to be linked by a walking track with interpretive signage to explain both Aboriginal and European heritage.

“Council should not sell this land, a community asset, to a private developer,” said Mr Gow. “This can be assured by Council voting to change its function from operational to community use. Its retention as community land would overcome the central issue of the conflict of roles involved in commercial negotiations to date, which have dogged the Council since the purchase of the site in 2016, its declaration as operational land, and more recently the discussions with potential buyers and developers. If Council agrees to reclassify the land as community use, we will be asking them to undertake a community consultative process to develop a Plan of Management for this site”.

Mr Gow can be contacted at ewparkgroup@gmail.com