MKSEA Amendments update

An update on planning that affects the Greater Brixton Street Wetlands.

On 4 November the Statutory Planning Committee (of the WAPC) met for a final determination and recommendation to the Minister for the Maddington Kenwick Strategic Employment Area (MKSEA), City of Gosnells Local Planning Scheme No.6: Amendments No. 166 and 169. The SPC is determining whether the Amendments should be recommended for implementation. This land immediately abuts the Greater Brixton Street Wetlands and the protection of the hydrology in that area is critical for retention of biodiversity in the GBSW.

This was our last opportunity to provide input into the process.

Here is our verbal deputation.

The Urban Bushland Council is the peak community organisation advocating for urban bushland and wetland conservation- representing 90 member groups.

We stand here today for the public interest, good planning and for all those community members and scientists who have been campaigning for decades for better protection of the Greater Brixton Street-Yule Brook wetland ecosystem – the most floristically diverse area on the Swan Coastal Plain.

• Make no mistake. No conditions can make this proposal, in its current form, environmentally acceptable.
• There will be permanent impacts on endangered woodlands and black cockatoos – plus so many other plants and animals as the area around the wetlands is further whittled away and the hydrology changed – yet again – forever.
• This not sustainable development and goes again key planning policies for water and the environment. And one of the most relevant, SPP 2.8 for bushland, seems to have been forgotten.

The aim of SPP 2.8 is to ensure bushland protection and management are appropriately addressed and integrated with broader land use planning and decision-making – to secure the long-term protection of biodiversity. Bush Forever Site 387, a.k.a. the Greater Brixton Street Wetlands, is surrounded by 11 other Bush Forever sites within a 7 km radius. These tiny remnants are all that are left in a growing sea of concrete. If there is any hope to preserve them, we must retain and enhance – even expand the native vegetation that connects these precious few remaining places.

SPP 2.8 is clear: “Proposals or decision-making should – …Proactively seek to safeguard, enhance and establish ecological linkages between Bush Forever areas.”

This proposal does the opposite – further reducing and degrading the corridors, ultimately impoverishing all these Bush Forever sites forever.

We recommend:

Will this Committee please recommend that the Minister:

• Do his duty and uphold these planning policies and sustainable development practices and knock back this proposal in its current form
• Implement a coordinated, not a piecemeal, approach for the management of the Yule Brook catchment area
• Take the opportunity now – to create a biodiversity conservation strategy for the Perth and Peel region to guide planning into the future.
• And start by adopting the Beeliar’s Group Vision for a Yule Brook Regional Park – a concept that UBC proposed in 2005?

To protect GBSW, the industrial development needs to be reduced in size and buffer zones created around the wetlands at a distance of 100m.

There could be many jobs created around a regional park. And a new park would help alleviate this growing feeling of anxiety and depression in so many people witnessing the unnecessary destruction of nature in Perth. Good planning means conserving the environment and improving everyone’s health and well-being for the present and future generations.

Our written deputation is here.

What did SPC decide? It was a confidential item so we couldn’t stay for the deliberations. When we find out, we will let you know.