Recent activity on the land earmarked for the planned Warnervale Town Centre is in preparation for the construction of 130 homes by Hudson.
Member for Wyong, Mr David Harris, said that while the home development was positive, it was time for Central Coast Council and the NSW Government to “be honest” about the future of the town centre. He said he had been waiting for a week for Woolworths to return his calls so he could make public statements about the grocery giant’s intentions for the Warnervale Town Centre site. “They may need to go back to the drawing board and be honest with people about what is going to happen and what is not going to happen,” Mr Harris said. “They can keep going with referring to the glossy brochure they put out in 2013, but the reality is the whole economy has changed and that has changed the future of the whole site.” According to Mr Harris, the future Warnervale Town Centre will be more like Wadalba than the original Wyong Council master plan.
“If you go back to the original plans, it was going to be bigger than Lakehaven and there is no business model to support that now. “We have a new Woolworths under construction at Wadalba and economically, the parent company, Wesfarmers, in their results, have said Target is struggling and we know Big W is struggling. “The original expectation was that there would be a Woolworths, Big W and 30 to 40 other shops. “Woolworths are pulling back from even having Big W’s and the news about Target backs up that the market is under extreme pressure. “It is safe to say that given the current economic conditions, it is just not going to be delivered the way it was originally sold,” he said.
Source: Interview, Feb 5 David Harris, Member for Wyong Jackie Pearson, journalist