With submissions now closed on Central Coast Council’s ambitious plan to revitalise the Gosford waterfront, two large community groups have slammed the proposal as premature and are pushing for the CBD to be revitalised before any development starts on the waterfront.
Both the Community Environment Network (CEN) and the Gosford Waterfront Alliance (GWA) are pushing for an extended consultation and submission period.
In a comprehensive submission sent to both Council and the Greater Cities Commission’s Central Coast Commissioner on the waterfront proposal, CEN says the Gosford city centre is “a wreckage of its former self … depressed and depressing”.
“We encourage Council to reconsider its latest ‘push’ to redevelop the waterfront as we believe it is premature – a bit like icing a cake before the cake is baked,” the submission says.
“We urge you, instead, to complete the economic and social revitalisation of the Gosford city centre (the cake) commenced in 2018 when the Coordinator General was appointed.”
CEN says Council and the NSW Government have failed to deliver on their promise to revitalise the Gosford city centre and the release of the waterfront concept plan is an unnecessary diversion from the work that remains to be done in the CBD.
“The ongoing stagnation of the Gosford city centre needs to be addressed expeditiously and there is no evidence that activating the waterfront will, in turn, fix the stagnation in the…