WARRUMBUNGLE Shire Council has unanimously rejected a Voluntary Planning Agreement (VPA) proposed by Cobbora Holding Company and called on the NSW government and the company to assess the impact of the halted project on the residents of Dunedoo.
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The council's general manager Steve Loane and mayor Peter Shinton said they believed a triple bottom line approach was needed; including pinpointing the economic effect to local businesses, the flow-on social impacts to the community and acknowledging the biodiversity of the natural environs surrounding the project area.
The agreement proposed by Cobbora Holding Company (CHC) allocates funding to local government areas based on projected change in populations to each of the communities supposedly impacted by the Cobbora Coal project if it began.
This would include the regional centre of Dubbo and outlying towns of Dunedoo, Wellington and Gulgong.
According to the Warrumbungle council, the response from CHC on the triple bottom line request appeared to not be forthcoming.
Mr Loane said the worker domicile model based on projected population changes resulting from the Cobbora Coal Project may assess the economic impact, but tended to ignore social and environmental factors.
"Model assumptions largely based on projected population changes have the risk of draining the social capital, environs and economy of smaller communities such as Dunedoo to the benefit of larger centres," he said.
"This modelling effectively ignores the social side of a community. Rural communities across the state such as Dunedoo are renowned for their community spirit and social capital.
"Quite frankly, the VPA proposed by CHC ignores the triple bottom line approach to assessing impacts on small communities such as Dunedoo. As far as we are aware, no other VPA for mining projects across NSW is based on the worker domicile model for funding allocations, which is skewed towards economic factors based on projected population changes. Where are the considerations for social and environmental impacts?"
Mr Loane said the council had received a strong letter from CHC warning them to accept the terms of the VPA or else the decision would be handed over to the Department of Planning and Infrastructure.
"We were told they would then make the decision for us," Mr Loane said.
"But then it wouldn't be a voluntary agreement."
Mr Loane said the council would continue to liaise with the Member for Barwon Kevin Humphries to seek support for representations to the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure and the NSW Treasurer to redress the inadequacies.
At last night's Dubbo City Council meeting councillors were to vote to approve a recommendation to accept the Voluntary Planning Agreement (VPA) offer generally in accordance with the draft VPA for the purpose of public exhibition.
Mayor Mathew Dickerson said he would not predict how the vote would go but he said the Mid-Western Regional Council at Mudgee had moved to accept the agreement and the Wellington council was set to recommend to accept the agreement.
"We felt we had pushed about as hard as we could," Cr Dickerson said.
