Wingecarribee Shire Council has reversed a previous unanimous decision to refuse a light industrial warehouse at Anzac Parade, Bundanoon.

Norlex is up to its usual heavy-handed tactics. After its application for shops and an industrial warehouse in Anzac Parade was refused two weeks ago by Wingecarribee Shire Council, it contacted some councillors to threaten legal action. Then, within 48 hours, it had lodged a notice of appeal with the Land and Environment Court anyway.

This is typical of the way Norlex has conducted itself in a multiplicity of legal actions over a separate proposal to extract bore water from an historic country lane in the village and ship it out in road tankers. But the battle is far from lost.

A packed gallery of 40 Bundanoon residents heard some councillors suggest that Norlex may have been given misleading advice by a member of council's planning department that its development application complied.

Clr Arkwright said that it was important that any doubts about the process of development assessment should be resolved quickly and that a detailed report should be prepared for the next meeting to reassure councillors that their earlier decision to refuse the development application had been soundly based.

This did not mean council supported the Norlex application, she said, but simply that it wanted to make certain that due process had been followed.

During the debate other councillors pointed out that Norlex had already lodged an appeal in the Land and Environment Court and it was highly unlikely that such an experienced developer would have been misled by the verbal, non-binding advice of an individual staff member.

BCA has expressed disappointment at the decision and said the application should still be refused as it does not comply with council's own planning standards and would adversely impact on the village.

BCA believes a light industrial proposal is totally inappropriate for the heart of Bundanoon and does not comply with the requirements of council's Draft Local Environment Plan and Development Control Plan 52. It also fails to take account of council's Bundanoon Main Street Heritage Study

We are concerned that councillors may be intimidated at the prospect of an expensive, drawn-out court action by Norlex similar to those over the company's long standing attempts to extract ground water for a commercial bottling operation.

BCA says the report should highlight the totally unsuitable design and poor quality building materials being proposed.

BCA has consistently stated that it is not against this development application simply because of the identity of the applicant but we believe that the council should defend the integrity of its own Draft LEP which does not permit light industrial use on this site.

Residents have pointed out that while the DA specifies the number of daily truck movements it fails to mention the use to which the light industrial warehouse will be put. If Norlex is not prepared to tell us what the purpose of the building is they can hardly expect us to welcome it. We are not so worried about the proposed shops, apart from their low standard of construction, but we are worried about a mysterious industrial operation in a heritage environment.

You can use the BCW forum to discuss the Don't Bore Bundanoon campaign.