Newcastle subsidence undermining development: expert - ABC Online

Posted March 30, 2013 07:18:43

Mine subsidence has been identified as the key obstacle for investment in Newcastle's inner-city.

Neil Petherbridge is an engineering expert involved in the Property Council's review of the New South Wales Government's draft Urban Renewal Strategy.

Released in December last year, the Strategy includes plans to cut the rail line at Wickham.

Mr Petherbridge says the city has great potential but, given the huge remediation costs in addressing subsidence, large developers are staying away.

"It is the key obstacle because the amount of money required to be spent to remediate some of these sites makes a lot of the sites unviable," he said.

"And we are talking millions."

"The Newcastle state law courts - $2 million to $2.5 million worth of remediation done there."

"Marketown Shopping Centre (Newcastle West) was over $3 million."

"There's a myriad of cases around the city where developments haven't gone ahead as a result of having to remediate."

"The Star Hotel Site (on King Street) is one of the classic ones."

Mr Petherbridge says developers shouldn't have to pay for the works upfront.

"The first fix is to stop looking at it on a site-by-site basis," he said.

"We need to start looking at it on a city block area basis so that we can come up with a strategy that's more efficient."

"We're also looking at setting up a fund which can receive State and Federal Government grants to assist with the process of getting the grouting done."

"Some funding from somewhere is going to be required to get this city moving."

Topics: mining-environmental-issues, urban-development-and-planning, newcastle-east-2300, newcastle-west-2302