This letter is with reference to your article on page 8 of Coast Community News 171 regarding the Kariong Parklands proposal.
I would like to refer you to the State Government’s Plan for the Central Coast 2036, and its idea of a Gateway at Kariong/Somersby.
Most towns I visit around Australia have a Gateway, usually a large entryway with unimpeded access to their towns so that their own people and visitors can be made to feel welcomed.
This is not the case at Kariong.
At the moment, we have four sets of traffic lights, a one-lane exit, and, if people choose to use the Woy Woy road, one of the most dangerous stretches of road in the country.
If the Penang development goes ahead, we will possibly have another set of lights.
This will most certainly be followed by a rearrangement in the traffic-light wait times to allow traffic to flow from the development.
Yes, I know there is going to be a new gateway sometime in the next couple of years, but it will not address any of the other issues I have mentioned.
Of course, people in Kariong want another shopping centre, and with the expected increase in the industrial development in Somersby and increasing population in that area, there will likely be the need for a much larger shopping precinct within ten years.
It is possibly only a matter of time, given the commercialisation of the Penang site, that even more development and industrialisation will continue until the time comes to redraw the 2014 Penang Development Plan and allow the present Festival site to be developed.
My question is why can we not, for once on the Central Coast, have some good Town Planning that takes all factors into consideration?
And when will we stop allowing this ad hoc planning which, as we have now seen with the Kariong roundabout, only adds to delays and frustrations down the track?
It will cost money of course, but the money spent now in redesigning this entire area will only benefit Gosford development in the long term.
Email, Nov 28
Geoff Mitchell, Kariong Progress Association