Community ‘betrayed’ on Treelands Drive centre decision

By Tim Howard

A Yamba community group says Clarence Valley Council staff have “betrayed” the trust of councillors and the public in their handling of a controversial $15 million community project.

The secretary of Yamba Community Action Network, Lynne Cairns, said the group has made Government Information Public Access requests of the council and the Department of Regional NSW and uncovered some damning information in documents that revealed that councillors and the community were denied in the decision making for the Treelands Drive Community Centre project.

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The controversy surrounding the centre in Yamba’s west began almost as soon as it opened in 1999.

But when council received an $11.1 million Bushfire Local Economic Recovery grant after the 2019-20 fires to be spent on the project the twists and turns have magnified.

Some Yamba residents said a plan to demolish and rebuild the centre was not a priority in the town.

And when the Grafton Pool was suddenly closed last year because of potential catastrophic infrastructure failure, council moved on November 22 to attempt to have the BLER grant transferred to the pool and move ahead with a proposal on December 13 that became known as Option B, to refurbish the community centre and include a library.

But during December and January these plans unravelled when the Department turned down the grant switch proposal.

And council became concerned the switch from a demolish and rebuild proposal would also rule the project ineligible under the BLER funding guidelines.

At its February 2023 meeting the council controversially rescinded the December resolution and re-instated Option A, to demolish and rebuild the centre.

Council is due to take the next step in this process at its meeting on July 25.

But YambaCAN has uncovered information its members believes undermines the council’s position.

After the February meeting it launched a series of GIPA requests to the Department of Regional NSW and the council, uncovering information that Mrs Cairns said throws new light on the process.

The group has sent a letter, listing its findings to all councillors ahead of the next meeting as well as to the Information and Privacy Commission.

“In an email exchange between a council officer and the Department in March, its seems someone in the department has realised the council has received the wrong idea about the BLER funding guidelines,” Mrs Cairns said.

“But in response to council’s email claiming Option B falling outside BLER guidelines its senior project officer said ‘With regard to point 2, I’m concerned that perhaps there’s been some confusion with the funding deed conditions, because for this project, we were aware Council were working on Option B and it would have been a permissible scope variation (i.e. to refurbish the existing centre, rather than knockdown/rebuild, in order to deliver the project within the available funds). I thought it would be helpful to clarify that point.’

“From that email trail it looks like council is saying that Option B doesn’t fit the guidelines and the Department is saying it does.”

Mrs Cairns said other emails and documents revealed under GIPA requests show the council did nothing to pursue Option B by providing details to the BLER program from September 2022.

“We found emails to council asking for budgets and planning details for Option B so they could assess them, but council provided nothing,” Mrs Cairns said.

Bizarrely the council did acknowledge this situation in February, just days prior to the council meeting when general manager Laura Black emailed the department.

“Council is seeking confirmation that the BLER funds are to be used for the project that was submitted – Treelands Drive Community Hub as described.

And whether, if it does not proceed with this, it too late to have some other project on the same site considered for the funding,”

Mrs Cairns said this was not an accurate portrayal of the situation.

“The ‘some other project’ was Option B, which the department had been aware council had been considering since September 2022,” Mrs Cairns said.

“It was not ‘some other project’ but something that had been a lawful resolution of the council since the December 13 meeting.”

Mrs Cairns said she had concerns the plans for the centre which went out to tender could contravene the BLER guidelines.

She said the BLER funding was conditional on the new building containing a commercial kitchen of 93 sq m and a dedicated multi-purpose under cover youth/early learning space with outdoor fenced area.

“The plans that went out to tender contained a 31.9 sqm community kitchen and the youth space is now an area beside the driveway that is not under cover, has no fenced area and is shared with the mobility drop off point,” she said.

“It appears none of these changes were officially approved as required by the Department.”
Mrs Cairns said another sore point was comparing the way changes to the Maclean Community Centre, which was also BLER funded, underwent radical changes, without the controversy.

Mrs Cairns said the information uncovered in the GIPA requests damages the council’s credibility in the community.

“To me it appears councillors and the community have been betrayed and decisions made which went against the community’s wishes,” she said.

Clarence Valley mayor Ian Tiley said he had read Mrs Cairns’ letter and said the difference between what the was revealed and what came to council was concerning.

“Councillors acted in good faith on information provided to them by the general manager and senior staff,” he said.

“We were told we did not have an Option B, but it now appears that we did have an Option B.”

Cr Tiley said he did not know how that transpired, but had sent a copy of the letter to general manager Laura Black to have it investigated.

He was not aware of anything related to this matter appearing in the business paper for the next meeting.

“The business paper is out later this week, I will be interested to see what is in it, and will talk more about It then,” he said.

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