HILL TOP
WHERE GOVERNMENT INTERESTS COME FIRST
.................. AND THE COMMUNITY COMES LAST!
The NSW Government is about to spend $6 million of taxpayers' money to build a giant shooting complex in conservation bushland near the tiny town of Hill Top in the Southern Highlands.
The Government wants to bring in the bulldozers to start clearing within weeks.
It is creating the Southern Highlands Regional Shooting Complex by carving out 1000 hectares of land from the Bargo State Conservation Area adjacent to Hill Top.[see the map] The bush is home to a large variety of endangered native wildlife including koalas that are about to have their habitat destroyed.
The development will bring thousands of shooters to a peaceful rural area, disrupting school and community life, and will deposit tonnes of lead every year onto Sydney's water catchment area.
The whole project is wrongly conceived and environmentally dangerous.
It is a misuse of scarce government funds in the wake of the current global financial crisis.
The NSW Government is proceeding with this against the wishes of local residents, the local council and environmental groups with no genuine consultation and with scant regard for the effect on the community and the local environment.
The map on this website shows where the shooting range is to be located.
It's Too Big, Too Close and Too Dangerous.
The history of this project is another example of how the Government uses state planning laws to ride roughshod over the wishes of local residents and environmental safeguards.
Who is opposing this?
Environmentalists, the Wingecarribee Shire Council, the local community at Hill Top and surrounding area and everyone concerned about the State Government's heavy handed actions under Part 3A of the EPA Act.
The Hill Top Residents Action Group (HTRAG) is currently taking action in the NSW Land and Environment Court in a last ditch effort to stop this development. HTRAG may not be successful. We need your support.
How did this project get off the ground?
For some years there has been pressure from the Shooters' Party to develop a bigger regional shooting facility south of Sydney. The Government has been receptive to such pressure due to the delicate political balance in the NSW Upper House. Without a majority of its own, the government is dependent on the support of minor parties including the Shooters' Party and Fred Nile to get its legislation through, including the sale of NSW Lotteries.
As a result the Government has been prepared to listen to the Shooters' Party.
Due to that pressure the Department of Sport and Recreation has granted $6 million of taxpayers' money to the shooters to develop a massively expanded range on the site of an existing but small and little used facility.
The size of the intended new development tells the story.
• Car parking is being built for 180 vehicles
• The number of shooting points is expanding from seven to 224
• The number of shooters is expanding from approx.1000 a year to over 14,000 shooters a year.
• In addition to the current 800m range, it will have five additional ranges: a 500m rifle range, a
50m pistol range, a combined 200m rifle and pistol range, a shotgun range and an indoor air range.
A development this big is incompatible with a small rural village approached by an unsafe bridge with no pedestrian crossings, no traffic lights, no footpaths and children playing/gathering around the local shops.
Worst of all - it is completely unnecessary as there were and are good alternatives!
HRAG is not opposed to shooting and recognises that shooters have a right to participate in their sport in a way that does not disrupt others.
The range could have been developed away from Hill Top and its school in state-owned pine forest, causing little damage to the environment and no disruption to the local community.
These alternatives were put to the Government and rejected because they had already decided Hill Top was the site - before they did any investigations at all. It was the easy solution to keep the shooters happy and the development on schedule.
So what did the Planning Minister do?
On 20 August 2007, the then NSW Planning Minister, Mr. Frank Sartor made an executive determination that the whole project is to be determined under part 3A of the EPA Act. This gives almost total control to the Minister.
Part 3A effectively precludes any real consultation with the community as the Minister can decide what happens anyway. There is no democratic process. Hill Top is a small town. This will be nothing short of an ecological and safety disaster for the local community and Hill Top Primary School in particular.
For the sake of our children and our community we must halt this dangerous development!
Any consultation has been a sham - all the reports submitted by HTRAG's own experts have been pushed aside. Worse still the government has even ignored its own consent conditions(Have a look at the conditions to be relaxed before site built on this page.) in its desperation to push this project through and appease the interests of the Shooters' Party in order to garner political support in the NSW Upper House.
For the sake of democracy, our community and the rights of citizens, we must halt this poorly thought-out dangerous development.
Here are just some of the problems with this intended mega shooting range:
• It is in direct earshot of the school. Shooting will take place at the same elevation as the school.
Hill Top school children will be required to undertake their classes against an audible background
of gunfire on at least two days but consent allows four school days a week. What is this? Afghanistan?
• It will further compromise the safety of the children and community who congregate around the
towns' main street.
• It will deliver tonnes of toxic lead onto the Sydney Water catchment area. Are there no rules at all?
• It will clog the already dangerously narrow access bridge into Hill Top and the fragile Wattle
Ridge Road (which leads on into the adjacent Nattai National Park and Blue Mountains World
Heritage Area) with greatly increased traffic. There are no plans to provide upgraded, safe access
to the site.
• It will increase the already acute risk of bushfires. Hill Top had 30 fire units standing by in the
town for a week as the Christmas 2001 fires threatened the township and burned through the
proposed range site.
• It will destroy essential habitat for endangered native animals including koalas
• It will bring to an end the quiet community life at Hill Top and surrounds.
• It has no safety fencing. Police recommendations for security fencing have been ignored. The site
will have only a three-wire fence on three sides.
• It has a history of accidents. A fatality occurred on this range as a result of stored ammunition
exploding.
And it won't stop here!
Those behind the project are already pushing for bigger and more powerful weapons to be allowed to shoot for longer hours than conditions laid down by the Planning Minister.
The Hill Top Residents Action Group just wants the community to be heard and their families and environment protected
And the cost of all this?
Six million dollars of your money is going to this project directly and indirectly the entire project is likely to cost close to ten million dollars if all safety and environmental issues were properly dealt with.
How much could the Hilltop Community and the School do with money like that?
For that matter, what could any school and community in NSW do with money like that?
Forget the Community, Forget Schools, Forget Safety and Forget Consultation!
Votes, Guns and Money - that's the NSW Government.