The Hornsby Shire Council are running an oxymoron consultation. The purpose of the consultation is to co-design a mountain bike trail network while protecting the high value biodiversity at Westleigh Park. We have gone to great lengths to point out that mountain bike trails destroy bushland.
To be clear we are not talking about shared tracks that allow for bikers and walkers to co-exist. We are talking about tracks that cannot have walkers as they would be in the way. They are to be purely designed for mountain bikes to rip up the soil, destroy vegetation and ensure native animals cannot exist in this landscape.
To make matters worse the area in question contains Critically Endangered Ecological Communities and Endangered Ecological Communities. These areas are protected under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 which declares that a person who damages declared areas of outstanding biodiversity value is guilty of an offence with the penalty being monetary penalty or imprisonment.
We have attended a workshop, webinar and sent a letter to Mayor and Councillors and have been ignored. The next stage of the consultation is now open and they are calling for Expressions of Interest (EOI) to take part in a series of co-design workshops in June. To express interest in participating in the co-design process please complete the form on the Westleigh Park web page.
The EOI process opens today, Tuesday 26 April, and will close in two weeks at 5pm Tuesday 10 May. Selected participants will be notified by Friday 20 May.
Participants are required to be available to attend all the sessions as the activities are progressive.
The sessions will be held:
- Sunday 5 June on site at Westleigh Park from 10am – 4pm (in the event of rain, workshop will be postponed to Sunday 12 June).
- Tuesday 21 June at Pennant Hills Bowling Club, 5.30 – 9pm
- Thursday 23 June Hornsby RSL (TBC) 5.30 – 9pm
The workshops are designed to include approximately 20-30 participants who will serve as representatives of the various stakeholders, groups and communities interested in this project.