Botany Bay and Catchment Alliance

 Community engagement is not a magic wand that can be waved to make all parties happy. If community engagements are not conducted in good faith and do not fully engage the community, they can be perceived as cynical and manipulative exercises. They may also be seen as tokenism responding to dominant voices and ignoring the broader community, as a means of co-opting groups or defusing opposition, as falsely raising public expectations, or as substitutes for good government and sound policy making.

This is why community engagements must be conducted in a clear, transparent manner that provides the public and all participants with a realistic understanding of the policy and decision making process and the range of possible outcomes. Part of this approach is clarifying the limits of the community’s influence in the process. This is particularly necessary when the decision making power ultimately rests with government. Without a clear definition of the realities of a particular situation, it is inevitable that a sense of distrust will be generated about the engagement process.

The above is contained in a document produced by the NSW Department of Planning.  As you can see, The Department of Planning is not/has not been bereft of good planning ideas.  You can read about them in:

Community Engagement in the NSW Planning System: Handbook and Website Full link  published in 2003

BBACA held its 6th AGM on 14 November and elected John Tourrier (Save Botany Beach) as its chairperson. John is keen to attend meetings of BBACA member groups and asks that you contact him (chairperson@botanybay.info) to arrange suitable times.
Other members elected to the BBACA executive are:
Jim Towart (Sec/Treasurer) - from Kurnell Regional Environment Planning Council
AJ Jack (Webmaster & Public Officer) - from Save Botany Beach
Gary Blaschke - from South West Enviro Centre
Lynda Newnam - from Botany Bay Explorers

Narelle Towart - Oyster Farmers Association
Milton Way - from National Parks Association (Southern Branch)

Welcome to the new look Botany Bay and Catchment Alliance web site. It is not only a new look, it is a new concept.

This site gives the opportunity for registered users to add their own content. Doing so is as easy as typing a letter.

If you are a member of the alliance be sure to register so you can let us know what is happening with your group and add news and upcoming events to the site.

And if any member group would like help setting up a site like this, send a mail to webmaster at botanybay dot info.

Recently DoL have published whole of NSW SPOT 5 satellite imagery on their website. You can link to this free site and click on the “Imagery” tab. Then “click here” under Lands Spatial information exchange to see the Spot5 images.

You may have to download some small image viewing software that will allow you to view ecw images, but after this is installed, you can view any Spot 5 satellite image in the state, with associated Cadastral and Topographic map features overlaid. The response is impressively fast and allows you to view your farm, your town or your catchment.