Archive for the ‘Strategy formulation’ Category

30 Sep

Central Coast Transport Strategy Submission Introduction

Posted by Habitat Association in New Town Centres, Population growth and planning for Tertiary Education Institutions, Public Transport, Rail and Bus Interchanges, Rail Freight, Regional Planning, Social impacts on population growth, Strategy formulation.

Introduction

The Central Coast Transport Strategy has been asked for by the community for nearly 10 years. An appropriate study and the formation of a strategy had been advocated by the community, principally by the Central Coast’s Planning subcommittee of the Community Environment Network and the Sustainable Transport committee of the Community Environment Network.

The Community Environment Network (CEN) was originally formed as a peak  organisation of  groups and individual interested in environmental issues on the Central Coast of the state of New South Wales, Australia in about 1998. The CEN was originally formed out of an initiative of the two Catchment Management Committees on the Central Coast, then manageing the catchments of Brisbane Waters in the south and Tuggerah Lakes in the north. These Catchment Management Committees have now been disbanded by the State Government and have been superceded by the Hunter Catchment Management Authority taking the same role but at a regional level.

As one of the founding members of the CEN and as a Director of the Habitat Association, Dr. Ray Rauscher has been a unwavering advocate for a wholistic regional approach to transport of the Central Coast. As Chair of both sub committees of the CEN has made numerous representations to the New South Wales (NSW) State government for a strategic approach to transport on the Central Coast of New South Wales.

On a visit by Mr. Reese, the premier of NSW, to Toukey in 2008, Dr Rauscher was able to have face to face discussions with the premier. Dr. Rauscher outlined the urgent need for a comprehensive approach when planning transport systems on the Central Coast.

With the Central Coast being the overflow dormitory suburb of Sydney over the past 40 years and now becoming a fast growing region in its own right, transport systems need to cater for a range of needs. With the southern localities near Gosford no longer able to accommodate further green field development growth, but providing large areas of higher density urban renewal and the northern areas north of Wyong now being opened up for massive green field development, transport systems must adapt to this new scenario.

The Wyong area, with new town centres planned at Warnervale and Wadalba East and substaniat business and commercial developments and already established areas such as Tuggerah, Lakehaven and Northlakes, transport structures will need to adapt in this northern region of the Central Coast.

Even further north but within the Central Coast’s bus network, a massive amount of development is coming on line, with a new Shopping complex planned at Lake Munmorah, housing developments planned at Gwandalan, Wyee Point and Wyee.

A conservative estimate of the amount of expected population in the North Wyong area is a extra 70 thousand by the year 2031 under the Central Coast Regional Strategy 2006.

From community support for a strategy and no doubt Dr. Rauscher’s persistance as a respected voice in the community, the Central Coast was given a draft Transport Strategy in 2010.

Following is the submission on this strategy by the Community Environment Nework from the Sustainable Transport Committee.

The submission is quite critical of the strategy in the way it has presented a future transport senario for the Central Coast. The draft strategy was not convincing in the way it presented the strategy.

The strategy did not seem to analyse the data presented to form any conclusions, needs, or lack of services etc. and as a result was not able to establish objectives to work towards using a strategic planning  formulation process.

26 Apr

A warning to the NSW State government about the potential for climate change to affect the economy of rural towns reliant on agricultural income

Posted by Habitat Association in Agriculture, Authors, Climate Change, Climate Change, David Holland, Human impacts on natural Environments, Strategy formulation.

 

by David Holland (Master Env. Mngt., B.A.S. Env. Planning)

I was alerted in recent news about cotton growers in Moree who have had good rains earlier in the year and were expecting a good crop of cotton this year. They were expecting 3.5 bales of cotton a hectare. To compare this with the top producers in 2012-13 this figure is well down on the 12 bales per hectare in this year and only 5 years ago at a time when the yield earned Australia in 2011 $3 billion from the trade. At the time, Australia was the 3rd largest exporter of cotton in the world and produced a high-quality product.

Due to recent hot weather in the Moree region and adjacent regions, estimates of the crop have dropped to 2 bales per hectare. This is possibly due to several factors but the hot day time temperatures would be one of the major factors in stressing the plant during the formation of the boll filling. This would often reduce the quality of the cotton and causes micronaire problems. Any temperatures above 35 degrees will shut down photosynthesis and effectively starve the plant.

During the summer of 2017 there have been a good many days above this temperature. But potentially more damaging to the cotton plant is high night time temperatures which continues the maintenance respiration of the plant through the night to keep it cool. This does not allow the plant to recover from the previous day further reduce the energy in the plant leading to underdeveloped fruit. (Holland, D, (2016) p. 12)

With a climate change scenario developing in NSW, the cotton industry which provides a large amount of Australia’s balance of trade, likely to be hard hit over the next few years, the State government should not only be aware of the issues related to the cotton industry, but start to be proactive to ensure that the industry can adapt to these new permanently changing climate conditions.

There are many rural towns that rely heavily on the profits from the cotton trade. If the cotton trade is damaged by the effects of climate change, then many of these rural towns will be financially effected. The State government and planners need to ensure that farmers and the industry finds ways to adapt so that towns reliant on this industry are not adversely affected economically by climate change in these regions.

I also heard a separate but related news item recently about the increased propensity of farmers taking out crop insurance. They are insuring against crop failures. In a climate change scenario in the cotton industry there will be a greater prevalence of farmers claiming insurance on crop failure and hoping against hope that the weather patterns will reverse and good crops will come again. This may happen for a time, but if a region is in the grip of climate change adverse to the crop in question a range of undesirable financial impacts are likely.

  1. Farmers will continue to farm as they have done and experience more failures.
  2. Farms that have no longer the right conditions for a crop will continue without considering new more viable locations to farm.
  3. Insurance premiums will continue to rise as more farmers call on the insurance to service their financial needs in the year of failed crop.
  4. At some point communities will be in a crisis where insurance is too high for the next year’s crop and crop failure is inevitable. This will potentially cause a town to decline in a fast and unexpected manner at some point.

The State government needs to consider the subject of farm insurance and the viability of the cotton industry in certain areas. If crop failure becomes the norm, then Australia will no longer have such an export bonanza through the cotton industry.

Reference:

Holland, D., (2016), The Cotton Growing Industry near Bourke NSW, A future with Climate Change, Habitat Association, WordPress web site, https://habitat-association.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/cotton-bourke2.pdf, cited 2017.