Council knocks back 141-unit aged care home in northern NSW due to flood risk

A 141-unit aged care home proposed for Tweed Heads in northern NSW on the Queensland border has been rejected by Tweed Shire Council, citing risk to residents in the event of a flood. The home put forward by Infinite Aged Care would have provided care for residents with acute issues such as dementia; however, Council refused to allow a deferral on its decision, which would have allowed the provider to find solutions to flooding issues compliant with the Water Management Act. Mayor Chris Cherry (pictured) admitted there is a need for aged care in the Tweed Shire, but said the floods that hit southern Queensland and northern NSW earlier this year highlighted the dangers.

“While I would normally support a deferral to find a solution… the legislation that says that we must not, must not, grant consent where safe occupation and evacuation will not be possible in floods. “When we are talking about the particularly vulnerable cohort that we are talking about in this development then I don’t think that any further negotiation will be able to solve that issue. Unfortunately, that’s why I can’t support the proposal,” she said.

Councillor Warren Polglase was the only member to vote in favour of providing the deferral, saying the benefits of having the facility outweighed the risks.

“This DA has been with Council 20–21 months, longer than a year and a half for determination. You would have thought that the applicant would have been advised beforehand, long beforehand, that this application had a considerable amount of faults and Council, in their opinion, were not going to approve it. “But instead, it came to the stage in the last two or three weeks the applicant was advised that this was not going to be supported,” he said.

Councillor Polglase had also supported land lease operator GemLife’s unsuccessful bid to build several manufactured homes on-site at its Tweed Waters community earlier this year.