Close vote on hospital fight

A DIVIDED Tweed Shire Council is calling on the NSW State Government to stop building the region’s new $534 million hospital.

Councillors yesterday voted four to three in favour of asking four state agencies to stop all works on the Cudgen Rd site due to the hospital not complying with the Tweed’s planning scheme.

The confidential last-minute meeting came a day after the Tweed Nationals MP Geoff Provest announced Lendlease had secured a $25 million contract for early works on the site.

After dismissing legal advice in the past fortnight and paying for advice from a barrister, Mayor Katie Milne, Cr Reece Byrnes, Cr Ron Cooper and Cr Chris Cherry voted to write to Health Infrastructure, Health Administration Corporation, NSW Ministers for Health and Planning and the Department of Planning to stop the work.

“Advises the above parties through council’s legal representatives that legal advice has been received in relation to the preliminary works and requests the works be ceased until resolution of these planning matters,” the council motion reads.

“Requests documentation of all works carried out to date on the site with respect to this proposal, including the photographic evidence of current site conditions.”

Early site works and geotechnical studies started on the former sweet potato farm on November 5 after a human blockade initially stopped trucks getting on the property.

Cr Milne was one of the protesters and proposed on the day to use council trucks to block further access on the site.

The community has been divided over the proposed site since it was announced in April.

Many argue the site is the wrong choice for the hospital because it is on State Significant Farmland and too close to Kingscliff.

Cr James Owen, Cr Warren Polglase and Cr Pryce Allsop voted against stopping work on the site.

Councillors told the Bulletin they could not discuss the proposed site’s planning issues due to the confidential nature of the legal advice.

However, councillors have argued in meetings of the hospital exceeding the three-storey limit that the council is trying to endorse in Kingscliff.