This Monday, 28 March, John Moratelli, WEPA President and Willoughby City Councillor, will be moving a motion to have the recently elected Willoughby City Council state and publicise its opposition to the Beaches Link Tunnel and agree to put aside funds to challenge any planning approval for the project.
We need you to contact your councillors before the meeting to encourage them to vote in favour of the motion, including the commitment of money to obtain legal advice for a challenge. Councillor emails and contact details are available here.
Why fund a legal challenge?
John will be asking Council to commit money to obtain legal advice as to the prospects of successfully challenging any planning approval of the project. The basis identified for the challenge is the failure of the EIS to consider any alternatives to the motorway, in breach of the Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements. Council officers have estimated the cost of obtaining such advice to be between $30,000 – $45,000.
WEPA supports this strategy as we believe that being able to publicise the fact that Council is considering a legal challenge is one more way to place pressure on the State Government to abandon this damaging project.
Background Information
The wording of the motion, the background paper, and the council officers’ recommendation are set out at item 16.1 of the WCC Agenda for the meeting which can be downloaded from the WCC site here. You can then click on the item in the contents section of the WCC Agenda and you will be taken to it.
Alternatively, we have copied the item from the Agenda and it can be read in full on the WEPA website here: Item 16.1 Motion on Tunnel
WEPA believes that the Tunnel Project is at a critical ‘watershed’ moment and we need to redouble our efforts to encourage the State Government to consider cheaper and less environmentally damaging alternatives.
Please feel free to pass this message on to others you know are concerned about the impact of the Beaches Link Tunnel on the electorate.
Caption: Variable Fairywren in Flat Rock Gully. Image: Meredith Foley