Ell calls for backflip on Tweed site

A HIGH-profile developer behind a Labor-backed site for the new Tweed hospital has threatened to scrap a huge housing project unless the Berejiklian government backflips and builds the hospital on his land.

In a letter to the Premier, Leda Holdings executive chairman Bob Ell warned that the Nationals would lose the seat of Tweed at this month’s election unless the government shifts the long-awaited hospital to his site in Kings Forest — 3km from the selected location in Cudgen.

The North Coast seats of Tweed, Lismore and Ballina are key marginal battlegrounds, with Premier Gladys Berejiklian having toured the crucial region on Friday.

The seats have historically been safe Nationals territory but the party’s hold on Tweed and Lismore were severely weakened at the 2015 election while they lost Ballina to the Greens.

Labor has been campaigning to turn the battle for Tweed, with a 3.2 per cent margin, into a a referendum on the new hospital site. Mr Ell’s letter was sent to Ms Berejiklian and select ministers on January 23.

In it he writes that if the government doesn’t build the hospital in Kings Forest he will not build 4500 lots of homes, create jobs, generate “literally millions” in GST revenue and stamp duties, council charges and service a population of 10,000.

Mr Ell says his land should be used for a hospital plus “related development” on an adjacent 32 hectares.

“Without a decision to locate the hospital at Kings Forest I will not be commencing residential development,” he writes.

“Were it to be chosen as the hospital location, however, the site can be delivered in accordance with the firm commitments we made.”

Mr Ell also says that not backing his site will likely cost the Nationals the seat.

“Good publicity generated will appease antagonists to the selected site and enhance the prospect of the state seat of Tweed being retained in March. Maintaining the current decision can only be expected to have the opposite effects.”

The Cudgen site is state significant farmland but was chosen by the government after an exhaustive consultation process. Health Infrastructure identified Kings Forest as inappropriate due in part to the koala population and it being “flood-prone”, but in the letter Mr Ell dismissed concerns about his land as “contrived”.