Latest Throsby catchment plan now open for comment

The latest plan for Throsby Creek and its catchment is now available for public comment.

The 3,000ha Throsby Creek catchment includes many of Newcastle’s oldest and most densely populated areas, including the suburbs of Adamstown, Broadmeadow, Carrington, Georgetown, Hamilton, Islington, Kotara, Lambton, Mayfield, New Lambton, Tighes Hill and Waratah; and public parks and facilities such as Blackbutt Reserve, Lambton Park, Braye Park, Broadmeadow sports grounds, Newcastle Showgrounds, Tighes Hill TAFE and Islington Park.

The latest plan (the Throsby Creek Catchment Agencies Plan 2018-2024) is the third integrated plan for the catchment, following the 1989 Throsby Creek Total Catchment Management (TCM) Strategy, and the 2001 TCM Strategy.

The 1989 plan was the first in Australia to be developed under a “Total Catchment Management” approach, bringing the community, local politicians, and about a dozen government agencies and councils with various catchment responsibilities together for the first time to plan the future of the creek and its catchment.

Before 1989, the Throsby Creek that flowed through Islington, Tighes Hill, Maryville and Carrington was a dirty stinking urban stormwater drain that nobody wanted to be near.

The government agencies responsible for managing various aspects of the catchment had operated mostly in their own bureaucratic silos, leaving affected communities increasingly frustrated at their inaction and buck-passing.

Community pressure was instrumental in initiating the landmark 1989 strategy, and community participation became one of the hallmarks of the preparation and implementation of the strategy.

The 1989 strategy and its 2001 follow-up produced a rehabilitation program for the catchment that has transformed Throsby Creek into the valued aesthetic, recreational and ecological asset that it is today.

During the 1990s the Throsby Creek TCM strategy was regarded as the go-to model for transforming urban waterways around Australia.

As Newcastle projects go, it’s one of our city’s great success stories, and testimony to what can be achieved when a community is united in purpose and action – an all-too-rare occurrence in the past two decades of projects imposed by successive Sydney-centric state governments on often unwilling local communities, usually at the behest of sectional interests.

The plan now on public exhibition may lack the razzle-dazzle of its more famous predecessor, but it’s a solid basis for improving the health, amenity and safety of the creek and its catchment.

It includes sections on:

·         ecosystem health and biodiversity

·         water quality

·         gross pollutants (litter)

·         flooding

·         implementation

Among many other things, the plan commits to developing a Mangrove Management Plan for the creek, identifying a “trigger point” for dredging accumulated sediment in the main channel, water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) in new development and infrastructure works in the catchment, identifying further bush regeneration projects, further naturalising creek banks, and supporting community education and participation initiatives.

However, the most important thing about this plan lies more in the fact of its existence than in the detail of its contents.

The real threat to an urban waterway like Throsby Creek is that it will again be forgotten, and degrade through neglect.

Debate there may be over some of the plan’s proposals for action, but having a plan at all means that the neglect of bad old days before 1989 is unlikely to return.

The Throsby Creek Government Agencies Committee that has developed the recent plan, and will be overseeing its implementation, is chaired by Newcastle MLA Tim Crakanthorp, who initiated the committee in 2016 in response to community requests.

The committee includes representatives of City of Newcastle, Hunter Local Land Services, Hunter Water, Lake Macquarie Council, Roads and Maritime Services, TAFE, Port of Newcastle, and Port Waratah Coal Services, and two community representatives.

The plan will be on public exhibition until 13 November.

Copies of the plan are available online at the consultation website: https://yourvoice.hunterwater.com.au/throsby-creek-government-agencies-committee. Suggestions and questions about the plan can also be posted via this webpage.