Member for Macquarie Fields Anoulack Chanthivong has taken aim at the NSW Heritage Minister for delaying by 12 months a decision on the State Heritage listing of the curtilage at Varroville in the Scenic Hills.
He says heritage minister Gabrielle Upton has a strict obligation under heritage laws to act on the Heritage Council’s recommendation within 14 days.
But Minister Upton has not said a word on the matter since September 2017, when the State Heritage Register Committee made recommendations about Varroville – a property of immense cultural and historical value in the local area that sits within the Scenic Hills, the “green lungs’’ of Campbelltown, he said.
The State Heritage Register Committee recommended that Varroville and its extended curtilage should be listed on the State Heritage Register – a worthy recognition of its historical significance not only to south west Sydney but also to the State’s colonial history.
“The recommendations made to the NSW Heritage Minister were clear and unambiguous,’’ Mr Chanthivong said in a speech to the NSW Parliament.
“If adopted, Varroville, its property and curtilage would be protected in law forever. Yet despite the urgency of the matter, the silence from the minister is deafening.
“Has the minister forgotten her obligations under the Act or does she simply not care? The minister’s inaction over Varroville is disgraceful and as slow as an all-stations train to Macarthur on a Sunday evening.
“No more excuses. Enough is enough. The time to protect Varroville is now.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“I call on the minister to immediately fulfill her obligations with respect to Varroville,” Mr Chanthivong said.[/social_quote]
A development proposal for a 136,000-plot cemetery and associated works on the land at Varroville is currently under consideration.
Mr Chanthivong, who has opposed any development of the Scenic Hills, says the cemetery threatens the Varroville property and its curtilage and will destroy its heritage value.
He said local residents listed “loss of green open space’’ as one of their top three concerns about overdevelopment in a survey Mr Chanthivong dubbed Stop the Squeeze.
I am surprised that the local member does not realise that this Coalition Government is only interested in working for developers and these institutions don’t make political donations to go to the bottom of the list. We look forward to the March election to fix this problem
There are so many questions that need answering over this cemetery from acquisition of land to the latest issue. This cemetery should NEVER have been approved in this area. IMO it needs formal independent investigating as the whole thing appears dodgy from start to finish. It needs to be stopped before it goes any further. We need to protect the Scenic Hills, not destroy them.
Was that photo taken on a potato?