This week’s top news stories on the Central Coast.
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- Central Coast Council is up in arms this week over a decision by the NSW Government to establish a Local Planning Panel, or LPP, early next year. The panel will comprise at least four independent experts and will make decisions on sensitive, complex and high-value development applications. Member for Terrigal, Adam Crouch, made the announcement on Tuesday. Mr Crouch said the new panel was needed to ensure major developments are delivered in a strategic way. He said the panel will bring greater transparency and accountability to the Coasts planning system. Mayor Jane Smith opposes the decision, saying it will depower Council and make it even harder for the community to affect the outcomes of development applications.
- A man has been charged over his alleged role in a credit card fraud syndicate on the Central Coast. The 45-year-old allegedly bought more than $450,000 worth of goods using the stolen cards between July 2018 and April this year. Detectives suspect the man is linked to a ram raid at a Somersby car dealership in March, where thieves took off with three collectable Holden Commodores. The man faced Gosford Local Court on Wednesday.
- This week, the Central Coast became the 31st local government area in Australia to declare a climate emergency. The decision was made at Monday nights council meeting. A number of community representatives spoke at the meeting, calling on Councillors to show leadership in establishing real action to avert climate change. Several Councillors criticised the move, saying the use of such language created fear and shifted attention away from taking more substantive action to reduce carbon emissions. The motion to declare a climate emergency was brought by Councillor Kyle Macgregor. We caught up with Councillor Macgregor through the week.
- It was a heavy week for the Coasts emergency services with two major surfing incidents on opposite ends of the Coast. In the first incident, beachgoers pulled a 40-year-old woman from the surf at Umina Beach with head injuries after being struck by a surfboard. The woman was airlifted to Royal North Shore Hospital and is reported now to be in stable condition. In the second incident, a 19-year-old surfer was rescued after being washed onto rocks at Bateau Bay. The man was also airlifted to John Hunter Hospital with suspected spinal injuries but is now recovering. Bacon lovers on the Coast will be pleased to learn that the region has some of the best bacon in the country.
- Edwards Family Butchery took out the bronze medal at the Australian Pork-Mark Bacon Awards for their short cut bacon. The iconic central coast butchery, which has shops in East Gosford and Woy Woy, is run by Mark Edwards and his sons. This was following up on reports our production crew may have enjoyed one of Marks signature Bushman steaks last night.
Plus Education: Last week, there was overwhelming interest in our story on the success of Blue Haven School being named Australian Primary School of the year as well as its Principal Paul MacDermott being named Australia’s Principal of the year. If you’d like to see the full video news story, this is now loaded on the Coast Community News website.
Plus Sport: The Central Coast Mariners have progressed through to the last eight of the FFA Cup with a victory over Brisbane Roar on Wednesday night. Goals by Matt Simon and Sam Silvera were not enough to separate the sides after 120 minutes of football, but the Mariners prevailed 4 to 2 in a penalty shootout. The Mariners were missing three of its regular centre-back Galifuko, Tonic and Kirol but they did play new 20-year-old signing – midfielder Gianni Stensness. Stessness put pen-to-paper this week on a one-year-deal with the Mariners and if his recent form in the U20s World Cup is anything to go by, we have a lot to look forward to.
Plus Sport: In rugby this week, the Gosford Red Devils took on The Lakes in the elimination semi-final at Woy
Woy Oval. But the Lakes hit back just before half time with this try in the 36 th minute. The Lakes then missed this opportunity early in the second half. The full-time score was Gosford 29, The Lakes 14. Gosford will now play the winner of this week’s major semi-final between Terrigal Trojans and Ourimbah.
Plus Challenge: Finally, Ninja Warrior style obstacle course racing will hit the coast next month with the annual Raw
Challenge 12 hour Enduro. The event, which will be held in Doyalson on the 21 st of September, is one of Australia’s biggest obstacle course events of the year and will attract a big field of athletes and beginners alike. The course features over 55 obstacles laid out over an 8 kilometre circuit. Ross Barry took a crew out to the course for a training run this week and, somehow, seemed to be the only person to keep dry.
Presented by Georgia Lienemann.
Camera & video production; Alex Herget
Interviewers; Ross Barry
Editorial production; Ross Barry
Digital Publishing; David Abrahams
Produced by Community News Partners for Central Coast Newspapers, Copyright August 30, 2019.