Four young children were left in tears after the Narromine Shire Council rejected a development application for them to use the motorbike track in their backyard.
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Owner of the property and applicant of the development application, Luke Harding said he and his wife Kerry had purchased their 25-acre property on Old Backwater Road 18 months ago to allow their two children to practice riding.
More recently they wanted to build a motorbike track so their kids, and nephews could practice for competitions.
However, just days before the couple had completed construction of a motorbike track, to include jumps on their property, the council approached them saying they needed to lodge a development application.
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"Honestly we didn't realise we needed one for a motorbike track, because all we did was push up a bit of dirt, we didn't bring any soil or anything in," Mr Harding said.
The Hardings stopped work and lodged an application. The couple forked out to pay for civil engineers and noise tests to support their application.
But at the July council meeting, the majority of Narromine Shire councillors voted against the track.
According to the council, the development was not consistent with zone objectives under primary production, and was a concern for noise pollution.
When the meeting was on they all ended up in tears
- Luke Harding
"Noise impacts on residential receivers are not able to be mitigated satisfactorily in the location," the council minutes read.
Council also raised concerns about the stormwater runoff not being addressed and the lack of adequate landscaping to screen the track.
They also agreed the development was not in the public interest.
During the meeting, councillor James Craft called for the council to investigate ways the track could be allowed via an amendment to the recommendations. However, he was unable to get support from enough councillors.
In the end councillors, Craft, Les Lambert and Colin Hamilton voted to look into ways the track could go ahead. But Lyn Jablonski, Mark Munro and mayor Craig Davies were against it.
Because the vote was evenly split, Cr Davis was given the deciding vote.
"It's quite disappointing to be honest," Mr Harding said.
"It's quite stressful and depressing. We've outlaid this money for our family and our kids and the council have just squashed it.
"I understand people don't want to hear motorbikes going everyday, which is fine, we were happy to talk with people and the neighbours and do something that suited all of us.
"We don't want to get offside with anyone on the street and road. But it got squashed before we even got to that."
Following the meeting, Mr Harding said it was the children who were the most upset with the decision.
"When the meeting was on they all ended up in tears," he said.
The father of two said he was "disappointed" that council couldn't understand what the family were trying to do for their kids, and highlighted the lack of facilities available for motorbike riders in the shire.
"I raced Australian titles and things like that when I was 15-years-old, and learned from training at home, and I just wanted to give my kids the opportunity to practice so they were safe and competitive," he said.
"Other kids that play football in Narromine they've got football ovals to train on, there's soccer ovals to train on, tennis courts to practice on, but there's nowhere for kids to ride motorbikes on.
"There's nowhere [for people to ride], unless it's on your private property which is what we've done."
"We understand that motocross is a high-risk sport and you can be injured, and that's more of a reason that kids need to train for their own safety ... so when they go away they understand corners, jumps and ribbon sections and things like that."
He said the children were permitted to ride on the land, however now there were jumps put in place, they were not able to be used.
"It's pretty hard to explain to [the kids] every afternoon when they come home they can't ride their motorbike track, but they can ride directly next to it on the flat ground, they just can't go on the jumps," he said.
Mr Harding said it looked like council had found "every excuse" not to pass it.
"People talk about kids being inside on computers and playing games, and our kids want to be outside and ride motorbikes and [the council] is basically stopping that," he said.