General News
22 May, 2025
Councillors approve development application for large-scale accommodation
Gilgandra Shire Council (GSC) has unanimously supported a development application for a significant tourist and visitor accommodation development at 14 Marshall Street that GSC management believes will put the town “10 steps ahead” of other regional communities.
According to the business paper prepared for the April 15 GSC meeting, the proposed new facility would have 66 unit blocks to provide separate rooms for 524 people.
While listed as a tourist and visitor accommodation site, the key purpose of the proposed development would be to house workers coming to Gilgandra for inland rail and other major infrastructure projects.
It would also feature 205 standard vehicle parking spaces and 36 heavy vehicle parking spaces.
GSC believes the development will provide positive economic benefit by supporting inland rail projects that across the state have the capacity to provide up to 16,000 new jobs in peak construction and up to 700 additional jobs over its construction period.
It has also requested an amendment to the Gilgandra Development Control Plan that specifies that tourist and visitor accommodation development requires one space per unit plus an additional space per employee.
This variation request is based on studying parking demand for similar inland rail projects. Council’s Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) believed 150 standard car parks would be required for drive in/drive out workers, with 55 standard car parks and 20 bus/heavy vehicle parks required for inland rail employees and major contractors.
It is considered that 16 shuttle buses could ferry 425 workers.
On top of the above-mentioned 241 car parks, an additional six disabled car parks and 12 car parks for staff would be constructed.
In addition, the camp would be fully fenced, have CCTV throughout the site, the office would be staffed 24 hours a day and the site would be regularly monitored by a local security firm.
At its April 15 meeting, GSC councillors were asked to vote on the following resolutions:
That permission be granted to vary Chapter 14 of Gilgandra Shire Council’s Development Control Plan 2011 for the property of 14 Marshall Street (Lot 50 DP 1293728, Lot 26 DP 735005 and Lot 1 DP 824103) to allow for Tourist and Visitor Accommodation DA 2024/566
That DA2024/566 be approved in accordance with the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979
That the conditions outlined in Attachment 3 be noted as forming part of the conditions of consent.
That, in accordance with section 375A of the Local Government and Planning Legislation Amendment (Political Donations Act) 2008, the names of councillors who support and oppose the decision be recorded.
The motions were all supported unanimously.
Councillors Batten, Amber Bunter, Ian Freeth, Madeline Foran, Paul Mann, Brian Mockler, Greg Peart, Ash Walker, and Nick White all approved the motions. No councillor opposed. Prior to voting, GSC mayor Doug Batten told the meeting: “This is just part of our Inland Rail strategy, and support for the project overall.”
GSC general manager David Neeves then took up the discussion.
“It’s a number of years in the making, to get it to this stage,” Mr Neeves said.
“It certainly puts our community 10 steps ahead of the next one, because no one else will have an approved temporary workforce accommodation.
“I’m really pleased that we have got to this stage and it’s through considerable effort from the staff and great consultation with the community that we have this well-balanced outcome.”
Kristy Cosier, council’s planning and development manager, then spoke about the process involved to reach a point where councillors could vote on the proposal.
A development application was lodged late last year.
As council was the applicant and the landowner, there was a council related conflict of interest policy that had to be followed.
This meant that conflict of interest management statement that was part of the exhibited documents for the public to view.
“(This was) to be satisfied that council was treating the assessment of the DA, as with any other,” Mrs Cosier said.
“The main principles around that were making sure the assessing staff within my team were not part of those preparing the application.”
It also meant any correspondence was distributed through the formal planning portal and there was a 28-day public exhibition period from November 25 to December 22 last year which was required under the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) legislation before coming to a council meeting for determination.
“The key one was having a peer review undertaken by either an external body such as a planning consultant or an adjoining council,” Mrs Cosier said.
Gunnedah Shire Council was asked to undertake a peer review assessment of the DA.
The Gunnedah council was satisfied in terms of the process GSC had undertaken.
