Tensions were high in the Penrith City Council chambers this week as many residents attended Monday’s Ordinary Meeting to plead with their local representatives to endorse more funding for rural drainage issues.
North Ward Councillor Glenn Gardiner put forward a motion to use $7.1 million from the recent sale of the Emu Plains Industrial (Rocla) Project to fund the outstanding drainage works to be completed.
The motion was put forward after Gardiner and fellow North Ward Councillor Kevin Crameri held an important public meeting on Thursday, July 18 to speak with their community about flooding and drainage issues.
Gardiner’s motion was responded to by Council Officers outlining the funding available for rural drainage maintenance.
“When adopting the 2024-25 Operational Plan, the council allocated $800,000 to rural drainage maintenance to commence addressing the matters arising from the rural drainage audits,” a note from Council toward the motion said.
“Council’s draft budget that was placed on exhibition originally allocated $500,000 towards the rural drainage works. Council subsequently increased that by $300,000 to $800,000 after consideration of the March quarterly review report.
“Council staff have projects planned for this budget and they will be delivered over the 2024-25 year.”
The Rural Drainage Audit report was commissioned by Council at a cost of $150,000 by external company J Wyndham Prince and the report was later presented to Councillors.
“Council has undertaken several rural drainage audits across three catchments in 2023-24,” the note from Council said.
“The outcomes of those audits have been reported at the 13 May 2024 Councillor Briefing. The catchments included Llandilo, Berkshire Park and Londonderry.”
Attendee of the community meeting, Vince Monteleone, addressed Council to ask them to vote for the motion to provide additional funds for drainage works in their area.
“I did some research and came across the articles of Councillor Crameri where you can clearly see there are road drainage issues when it doesn’t even rain,” Monteleone said.
“So, I said to myself, where is the water going? Water has a natural flow. But if there is not adequate drainage, given the events of the last few years, it’s raining a lot.
“…So, the question begs is there a risk of life? I don’t want to sensationalise this but it’s all about risk.”
Monteleone finished his address by asking Penrith Council to help mitigate the risk.
“Let’s put politics aside, become united [and] invest in our communities to leave a safe legacy for our future generations versus a potential drainage flooding catastrophe.
“Rather than talk the risk lets walk the walk with this risk to mitigate it together.”
Gardiner spoke passionately about the motion he had put forward in response to the Rural Drainage Audit Report.
“The Report found what was already known by residents in the rural north of Penrith, that there were significant ‘maintenance defects including overgrown vegetation, blockages, spalling and cracks, missing and broken headwalls and erosion around these assets’,” Gardiner said.
“The Report claims an ‘estimated total cost for required renewal of existing rural drainage assets in Llandilo, Berkshire Park and Londonderry to be $7.1 million’.”
Gardiner asked his Council colleagues to support his ask of allocating the needed $7.1 million from the sale of the Rocla site to the drainage repairs.
“I note that there is currently $500,000 allocated to improving the drainage assets in the current operational plan but there is no funding available beyond that and as the report warns inaction will create an increased cost as damage occurs to the road network, not to mention the safety element also referred to in the Report,” Gardiner said.
Gardiner concluded his address by issuing a warning.
“It is at the most fundamental responsibility for Council to provide adequate civil infrastructure, such as storm water management,” Gardiner said.
“Our level of storm water management in the rural areas of our city is grotesquely inadequate and we are failing in our core responsibilities whilst ever we walk past this inadequacy.”
Long-time advocate for Llandilo drainage issues, Kevin Crameri also spoke in favour of the motion.
“We have to do something and do it soon,” he said.
North Ward Councillor John Thain spoke against the motion.
“We do also have a responsibility, not just as North Ward Councillors, but we have a responsibility as a Government Act says to the whole of Council,” Thain said.
“There hasn’t been audits conducted in South and East Wards and funding needs to go to that so that they get audited, and they get priorities, and they get a program of works put in place as well.
“We have to look at the whole LGA not just one ward.”
Despite Councillors Gardiner, Crameri and Independent Sue Day voting for the motion to allocate $7.1 million to fixing rural drainage issues, the motion was lost.
Councillor Fowler put forward a foreshadowed motion for a report to be presented to the new Council to address the issue, this was endorsed by Council.
Emily Chate
Emily Chate joined The Western Weekender in 2024, and covers local news - primarily courts and politics. A graduate of the University of Wollongong, Emily has contributed to The Daily Telegraph and worked as a freelance journalist.