Your local Cumberland newspaper

Rude welcome

01May08

This abandoned car yard at Glendale is an unattractive gateway to Westlakes

TAKE a good look around your suburb.

The shells of long-abandoned car yards, petrol stations, supermarkets and workshops litter the landscape of Lake Macquarie.

From the Glendale crossroads to the empty Swansea BI-LO supermarket site to the gutted Toronto Mitre 10 store on all sides of the lake property is waiting to be demolished, redeveloped or repossessed.

And Lake Macquarie Council is powerless to stop it.

Site owners are under absolutely no obligation to keep their sites and structures from slipping into ugly disrepair.

Owners are bound to improve the physical quality of their sites only if the council can prove public safety is directly at risk.

The council's acting manager of development assessment and compliance Greg Brook told the News that the council could not serve orders on an owner based on disrepair alone.

"Council doesn't have a policy as such," Mr Brook said.

"But it can serve an order to have a site fenced if there is a threat to public safety."

Owners are under no time limit to proceed with development or demolition.

The Lake Macquarie News wants to know your views on these derelict sites. Do you have any suggestions on what should be done? Do you know of any more? Send your thoughts to editor@lakemacquarienews. com.au or to PO Box 395.