Local Community Notice

This is a copy of the notice letterbox dropped to neighbouring properties on 03/03/2013.

As you probably know by now, Scouts Australia (NSW) have the ‘Boy Scout Camp’ property  for sale, listed with a local real estate agent. This 5.6 hectare property is bordered by the neighbouring properties in Beachcomber Ave, Bournemouth St, the old council tip and Royal National Park.

A group of local residents met last Friday 1^st March and developed our preferred strategy for saving the land from development. The Scouts have offered the land to National Parks which assessed the land and found it met their criteria for inclusion into the Royal National Park. They declined to purchase the land however, because it does not sit high enough on their priority list for land acquisitions and therefore there is no budget to make the purchase.

While we as citizens can (and will) lobby the Minister for Environment and Heritage to purchase the land for National Parks, the Scouts in the mean time can sell this land to whomever they want and we only have a brief window of opportunity to ensure this land gets locked away forever from potential development.

After some research, the preferred strategy is for us, the local community, to raise the funds to purchase the land ourselves and have it made part of the Royal National Park. We would do this through the Foundation for National Parks who routinely perform this role. They have indicated they will support us and also put a small amount of money into our fund. This is a tax effective way to purchase the property (through the Foundation) because our contributions will be tax deductable and we can save on legal costs and taxes.

We need to act quickly. We need to be able to approach the Scouts and start negotiating a reasonable and fair purchase price on this basis.

We need local residents who can commit to donating $10,000 towards purchasing this land to save it from development for ever.

We need a ‘core’ group of residents willing to commit to investing in protecting this land so that we have some foundation upon which we can approach the Scouts and start negotiating to purchase the land through Foundation for National Parks. Once we have a deal negotiated with the Scouts, we can place our efforts into raising the money required to purchase the land through the Foundation. Your commitment to donating $10,000 may not be the final amount required. We might be able to reduce that amount through our fundraising efforts including finding corporate and private philanthropist donors. You will be able to tax deduct your contribution too.

By pledging your support for $10,000 you will, if you wish, be joining the ‘purchasing group’ and will be invited to join us in our future meetings and be able to contribute to and vote on our strategy and our actions.

Location map boy scout camp neighbouring the Royal National Park