The Hon John Hatzistergos 9 December 2006
Minister for Health
Governor Macquarie Tower
1 Farrer Street
SYDNEY NSW 2000

Dear Mr Hatzistergos

While our Association supports the idea of one Regional Hospital for the Eurobodalla Shire we have two major concerns with Council's proposal:
a) Council has been promoting unsuitable locations between Broulee and Moruya River (the Bengello sandplain) because they own the land not because any are the best site; and
b) experiences in Australia and in Britain with similar private-public partnerships have been disastrous for patients and taxpayers.

Our letter concentrates on the planning and environmental impacts of the first of these concerns.

Planning Impacts

Eurobodalla Council acknowledges that the planned regional hospital and associated facilities will attract many additional enterprises and be a major employer. As such they must be viewed as commercial enterprises as well as large items of public infrastructure. They need to be centrally located in the Shire and transport links will be important.

Council professes that the choice of sites will be left to the NSW Government. However, we know that senior staff have been lobbying for years to use land Council owns between the coastal village of Broulee and Moruya River (see attachment 1 - map of Council owned land and suggested sites). We fear they will continue to do so behind the scenes. Land adjacent to Broulee was declared the preferred site in a report to Council on 5 June 2006 but the location met with strong protests from some Councillors and from the many people who packed the gallery for that meeting.

Eurobodalla Council is currently preparing a new LEP and a great deal of public consultation has taken place with the result that a Settlement Strategy has now been finalized. Residents do not want villages converted to towns and support the settlement boundaries proposed by the Dept of Planning and by the Settlement Strategy. The sites Council owns between Broulee and Moruya River are outside the settlement boundaries.

The Settlement Strategy states that hospitals are appropriate for Moruya or Batemans Bay. (see excerpts from the Eurobodalla Settlement Strategy Attachment 2 - printed below)

A regional hospital near Broulee would not only completely change the character of the coastal village, it would undermine the role of Moruya as one of the Shire's three main towns.

Environmental Impacts

a) Endangered Ecological Ecosystems (Attachment 3 - map of Vulnerable Ecosystems)
Council mapped both the flora and fauna constraints of the Bengello sandplain as part of its Coastal Capacity Planning exercise which is the basis of the Settlement Strategy.

Development of the site preferred in the June 2006 report would completely destroy the Endangered Ecological Ecosystem (Bangalay Sand Forest) on the land. Council land north of Waliija Wetland (SEPP 14 Wetland No. 182) is also covered by this ecosystem.

b) Threatened Species Habitat (Attachment 4 - map of Yellow bellied Glider habitat)
Prime habitat for Yellow bellied Gliders is found over most of Council land in the area between Broulee and Moruya River. Endangered owl species have also been recorded from the area north of Waliija Swamp and Glossy Black Cockatoos are frequently seen feeding on the site preferred by the June 2006 report.

c) Flooding and ocean inundation
The site south of the racecourse is very low lying and during past floods has been cut off by flood waters. Climatologists predict more extreme weather events in the future and sea levels will rise during the life of any new hospital.

For the same reasons it seems illogical to build any major tourism development, including one for medical patients, on or near the primitive camping area on the river side of the airport.

Coastwatchers urges the government to choose a site for the regional hospital that will support the aims and objectives of the Settlement Strategy by strengthening the role of a town and protecting the environment. In our opinion Moruya is the logical choice as it has plentiful cleared land, good transport links and is centrally located.

Yours sincerely

Jenny Edwards
Secretary

ATTACHMENT 2

From the adopted Eurobodalla Settlement Strategy December 2006 (the highlighting in bold is ours)

Regarding the role of settlement types the Strategy gives these examples (page 115):

Moruya - a Local Town Centre
Administrative centre for the Shire, full range of schools, tertiary education campus,
hospital, regional sporting facility, bulky goods centre in proximity

Malua Bay (Broulee is in this category in the Strategy's Table 5.1 - Coastal Villages)
In some locations a primary school, local sports field. (The Strategy states that Villages should be limited to neighbourhood centres with regard to commercial activities)

In addition to the above facilities, primary and administrative town centres have
the capacity to accommodate performing arts facilities and regional sporting
facilities (indoor and outdoor) as well as private facilities such as licensed clubs,
cinemas and regional tourism destinations.

The Strategy (page 59) lists some of the threats to Coastal Villages

Key issues currently facing coastal villages include development pressure on land that separates settlements causing ribbon settlement stretching along the coastal edge and along the main access road, and large scale tourist developments and subdivisions that erode the compact footprint and natural setting. Large new buildings can detract from the settlements' relationship to geographic location, views and vistas of the surrounding natural environment. In some cases increases in population are causing degradation of ecological values in neighbouring natural areas. The dispersal of commercial, retail and public buildings throughout villages erodes the vitality of the main street and the village centre.

The Strategy (page 88) also states that Council should respond in certain ways to ensure that Town Centres are not degraded. For example:

locate major commercial, civic, recreational and institutional functions in or near the major centres and co-locate major trip-generating activities generate a wider range of employment opportunities and business growth in appropriate locations close to housing, transport and services

preserve and reinforce the function of the main street by preventing any threat to business viability

neighbourhood centres are not to compete with the functions and services provided by the major towns

neighbourhood business is to be of a scale that satisfies the daily needs and conveniences of the surrounding population, is complimentary (sic) to the major towns and does not undermine the higher order functions of those towns facilitate