Echo Point mass tourism concrete amphitheatre

November 26, 2020

Echo Point Lookout to the Three Sisters pagodas in the Blue Mountains just keeps attracting massive government funding for expansion to attract more crowds. A whopping $22 million has been poured to this lookout by government since 2003 seemingly fixated on the premise that mass tourism visitation must translate to greater prosperity for local tourism.

No, the reality of mass tourism to the Blue Mountains is that it is mainly controlled by foreign outbound travel agencies who predefine attractions and so control market share with little financial benefit to the Blue Mountains economy.

Such presumptions by bureaucrats and their consultants ought to be tempered by delving into local reality, readily available from direct dialogue with local businesses and their representative chambers of commerce, not by second guess ‘yes men’ and by research, essays and policies in tourism issues trends in 21st Century concepts like overtourism, ecotourism, sustainable tourism, harmful impacts of tourism, tourism development. Since we are talking the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, tapping into UNESCO research would be a good start.

Yet in the Blue Mountains, government tourism funding continues to be tokenistic, shallow, extravagant and supporting few local private sector jobs. Government tourism funding just continues to be tokenistic, extravagant and supporting no local jobs.

In 2003, the Blue Mountains Council received $6 million in NSW government funding to ‘revitalise’ Katoomba’s nearby Echo Point Lookout. The pre-existing shady cul-de-sac views whilst being a tad dated (heritage?) were jackhammer and replaced with a massive flat concrete car park style mega lookout to increase the ‘wow’ factor – uninterrupted views was was the spec and budget the extreme UV at 1km above sea level.

Lookout capacity target: 2000 bus pax per peak time? Easy, except for poor parking planning.

“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot..with a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin’ hot spot…” – Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell 1970

The money was spent alright, on off-mountains consultants and with no local construction firms engaged and so no local businesses or employee benefited. “Love local”? But if gifted grants from on high are not fully spent, one doesn’t get to keep the unspent balance – it’s a public sector thing.

So, council got a new tourist info centre for its marketing message but as many attest in the wrong place. Yes, better safety fencing, increased public toilet facilities to cater for the anticipated hordes, and a series of expensive standing stones with quoted carvings to enhance the new visitor ‘wow’.

So built, they came by the Sydney coach load in their hordes. New parking meters were installed (temporarily) but mostly the visitation experience was for the Blue Mountains revenue poor.

Thirteen years hence in 2016, Blue Mountains Council felt that an upgrade of sorts was warranted. It had been 13 years without upgrade!

So out of the blue, Federal connections saw a $3 million National Stronger Regions Fund grant on offer to fund tourism infrastructure from the Federal Government. In the Blue Mountains this apparently means mega lookouts.

Government tourism funding just continues to be haughty, tokenistic, extravagant and supporting few if any local private sector jobs.

Seven outsourced contracted tenders for the project (all outside the Blue Mountains) were all exceeded the budget so were rightly rejected by councillors. So how else to grab the welfare dosh going?

Let’s think laterally and go culturally spiritual! – a new concrete amphitheatre with more lookouts and walkways and “cultural messages”. Make it a gathering place, add more lookout platforms and extend the boardwalk by 14 metres with seats cut unsustainably from native hardwood and stainless walkways that are highly slippery in the wet.

Well, it worked. After 12 months construction in late 2019 an empty concrete white elephant got built, the native vegetation it replaced gone for better views of the Sisters etc.

For more platform space, more lookouts and boardwalks, native vegetation got chainsawed for more tonnes of concrete in the quest for tourism development.

The ‘cultural exchange’ amphitheatre to “enhance the visitor experience” especially during lightning, with cold stone seating to contract bum veins and so cause the onset of haemorrhoids, else just a bigger concrete eyesore. How many tonnes of concrete poured?

“An elegant solution”?

The spin is that this concrete extension now provides a place for the community and visitors to sit and experience Echo Point and the Jamison Valley and to be used for cultural presentations (including dance, talk, drama and song) and scientific presentations.

Well let’s count the usage and attendance?

Council Mayor Mark Greenhill said Council was thankful to have received matched funding from the Federal Government’s grant, meaning that Council had chipped in another $3 million, bringing the empty amphitheatre blowout cost to $6 million.

The ‘city ‘ mayor celebrating incremental escarpment development to urbanise the Blue Mountains

Yet the blue Agapathus and purple Buddlejas and other noxious weeds remain clearly visible on the steep slope below the new fancy digs, flowering and providing seeds for bird dispersal into the Jamison Valley.

Greens Cr Kerry Brown said it was a great result (but for whom). We await the concrete cancer stains in a few years. Meanwhile high demand hiking tracks remain closed in both Council bushland reserves and the Blue Mountains National Park due to landslides unrehabilitated and ignored.

One gets the sense that government has an ear only to lobbying business business, so else remains out of touch with the diversity value of tourism. Not everyone visiting the Blue Mountains has a mission to be a day tripper on a crowded bus, do the Scenic Railway and post a cliff edge selfie on social media.

So they’ve paved paradise and put up a parking lot. There’s no pink hotel or boutique yet, nor big yellow taxis, but there are big white buses and a new swingin’ hot spot called Bar NSW. It was constructed a few years back as an extension of the Echo Point Plaza called The Lookout Echo Point.

That extension involved killing a mature locally native Scribbly Gum (Eucalyptus sclerophylla). The tree is on the left of the image below and note the image capture date on Google Maps.

The property owner wanted to provide a better view for patrons at the new bar, so the chainsaws were called in. Now the wonderful native tree is gone and alfresco pub seating is in its stead. The Scribbly Gum must have been as old as Echo Point (est.1925) – a hundred years old perhaps? It was still in top health.

Council continues to value commercial rates revenue over historic amenity.