Emirates Wolgan Valley Resort obviously didn’t do due diligence on Lithgow {city} Council risk

“Following the emergency closure of Wolgan Road on 9 November and in the best interest of our guests and colleagues, Emirates One&Only Wolgan Valley is temporarily pausing guest arrivals until we receive confirmation of safe and viable access being restored. Indications from Lithgow City Council are that this will be possible by 1 April 2023, however, we advise our valued guests to please check back soon for further information”.

 

When Emirates Group developed its remote 5-star Wolgan Valley Resort for $125 million, launching in 2009, obviously it hadn’t done the due diligence on the cash poor local government in Lithgow.

Nor had it considered the capacity of Lithgow Council to properly engineer build and maintain reliable road access through Wolgan Gap.

Woops!

The extravagant concept of siting a multi-million dollar high-end luxury resort in an isolated location within a local government area that has a predominantly low income and retiree demographic population with cash-strapped council, was fraught with extreme risk.

Wolgan Valley Resort was always going to be entirely exposed to the Wolgan Gap pass being vulnerable to heavy rains and landslips causing it to be cut off, and to the ongoing threat of widespread bushfires managed by a perpetually underfunded skeleton NSW Parks Service else unpaid RFS volunteers.

 

Background Story

Wolgan Valley Resort branded as ‘Emirates One&Only Wolgan Valley Resort‘ covers about 2800 hectares of river flat frontage around the confluence of Wolgan River and perennial Carne Creek, and is situated just south of prominent Donkey Mountain (image below) and just west of the famous Glow Worm Tunnel.

The property occupies about 20 adjoining pastoral land titles dating from colonial settlement from 1832 on the historic cattle and sheep out-station that was known as Wolgan Valley Station, located about 30km north of the township of Lithgow.

The combined property is surrounded by Newnes Plateau with sandstone cliff escarpments on all sides up to 150 metres in relative relief, and indeed Wolgan Valley is geographically a hidden valley.

The only bitumen road access via Wolgan Gap is artificial, as in man made since the late 1870s and subsequently widened and modifed over the decades.   Initial access into the Wolgan Valley however was then only by horse (or hiking) down nearby and steep rough hewn stoney Donkey Steps over and down the east side of the Gap.

Dubai-based Emirates Group in the middle eastern United Arab Emirates purchased this historic colonial pastoral station property with the derelict homestead and adjoining lots between 21st to 24th September 2007.

Emirates paid the following prices:  $1,488,376, $397,298 and $2,852,047, so making the combine property purchases AUD $4.74 million.

That was just the beginning.

Development project hurdles it had to then overcome to get its concept 5-star remote resort operational included:

• Development design and application for the proposed luxury resort – 40 guest villas , pool building, a reception building, restaurant, spa complex, staff accommodation precinct, gatehouse, stables, helipad, and support infrastructure (new electricity line and fibre option cabling)
• Complying with environmental governance an wildlife conservation measures associated with the native habitat within the Blue Mountains world heritage area – including preparing a Flora and Fauna Management Plan, and a pre-clearance survey (before deforesting and bulldozing land for the site construction works and lawn sowing)
• Preparing an Aboriginal Heritage Management Plan
• Preparing a Bushfire Management Plan
• Remediation of the site – waste removal, dam upgrade, new fencing, etc
• Construction of the resort, utilities and infrastructure
• A thorough approved Conservation Management Plan for the Wolgan Valley Homestead Complex
• Et al., less it seems due diligence or proactive risk management strategies.

The publicly reported development project cost came in at $125 million, including a total capital investment value of $60 million employing 150 workers during construction.

Emirates Group not only bought the pastoral lots, but also the adjoining privately owned lots that comprised native habitat extending into the Wollemi National Park estate, established in December 1979.  Since 29th November 2000, the Wollemi National Park has been inscribed on the World Heritage List as part of The Greater Blue Mountains Area, containing the largest remaining area of wilderness in New South Wales.

So effectively, Emirates Group, a private foreign multinational corporation owned by the UAE government was allowed by the NSW Government, acting as custodian of The Greater Blue Mountains Area on behalf of the Australian Government, to acquire and control its exclusive access and proposed developments within a World Heritage Area.

Such privatisation of public national World Heritage for exclusive commercial gain is unprecedented in Australia, especially when a foreign power is handed ownership and control like Dubai’s government in the United Arab Emirates.

Australian environmental conservationists back in 2007 protested against the NSW Labor Government’s approval by the then Planning Minister Frank Sartor, Member for Blue Mountains and the Environment Bob Debus both under Premier Morris Iemma‘s NSW Government at the time, thus:

“You shall not covet anything that is your neighbour’s.  You shall not desire your neighbour’s house, his field, or anything that is your neighbour’s.”       ~ 10th Commandment, Exodus 20:17.

Australian Conservationists of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness Inc. in 2007 protested against and rejected Emirates’ impost of its 5-star resort upon the World Heritage listed Wollemi National Park, thus:

1. “The (Wolgan Valley Resort) concept plan modification seeking to relocate part of the Emirates resort into the World Heritage Area is totally unacceptable and must be rejected;
2. The Emirates have a 1000 hectares of freehold land in the Wolgan Valley and should be able to develop their resort without extending into Wollemi National Park;
3. The move sets a big precedent; as there are no resorts in Blue Mountains national parks;
4. Future resort proposals will be able to relocate from private land on to national parks using a ‘minor’ planning review process which provide the public with very few opportunities to lodge effective objections;
5. The resort proposal should stay wholly on its thousand hectare private property in the Wolgan Valley over which the Emirates have placed an option to buy;
6. The resort relocation is not consistent with the Wollemi National Park plan of management and would appear to be illegal;
7. The proposed resort relocation into a national park is not justified or even well explained by the modified concept plan that does not contain basic information about what parts of the resort would be situated within the national park and where (Minister Debus has explained that a dam upgrade, roads, six villas with guest pools, a reception building, support infrastructure and fencing would be located in the World Heritage Area);
8. Donkey Mountain and Mount Wolgan, magnificent sandstone mesa complex within the Gardens of Stone National Park, would effectively be alienated by a proposed feral animal proof fence;
9. A huge dam would receive water transferred from the Wolgan River and other sources;
10. Horse riding is proposed but that riding trails are not specified and could include national  park areas, which may also be illegal in regard to the plan of management;
11. The Minister’s letter warns the Emirates that the resort lease would be open to litigation;
12. Future patrons would probably travel to the proposed 6-star resort by helicopter, as the rich just won’t consider travelling for three hours by road after a long international flight;
13. No noise impact assessment was undertaken for the proposed helicopter operations;
14. There are many unanswered questions on top of the outrage of relocating into the national park.
15. Opening the door of our national parks to resort development will damage our national parks and wilderness areas.”

    SOURCE:  Colong Foundation for Wilderness Inc., email Friday 15th December 2006.

Risk Management Due Diligence?

The following external events that have adversely impacted upon the were likely high risk if not predicable, and this doesn’t include the 2 year China Virus pandemic invasion and economic lockdown period 2020-2022.

Due diligence?

Ahead of purchasing property in the dead-end Wolgan Valley, what investigations were made to assess likely road closure into Wolgan Valley due to the region’s propensity for wildfires (and the state government’s well-publicised inability to control them), also landslips and also to subsidence risk due to the area’s extensive history of underground coal mining?

Risk management is then the analysis of the risks and of the consequential impacts to one business should the likelihood occur of such subsidence like in November 2022.  What then was backup Plan B?

1.Lithgow State Mine Bushfire    [17th October – 20th November 2013]

This fire was deliberately lit by the Army while detonating anti-tank RPG ammunition at its Marangaroo Training Area was internally approved on a hot and windy Total Fire Ban Day.

‘The State Mine Fire’ ended up destroying 56,590 hectares of bushland, five homes and the Zig Zag (tourist/heritage) Railway infrastructure.  It was fanned by SW winds and allowed to spread eastward through the Wollemi National Park and impacted Lithgow, Mount Wilson and Bilpin.

2.Gospers Mountain Megafire   [26th October 2019 – 10th February 2020]

An unattended pile burn on a remote rural property off Army Road near Gospers Mountain and surrounded by the vast Wollemi National Park (5017 km²) started a bushfire which was left by the  NPWS and RFS alike as a defacto hazard reduction.

It was allowed by the custodial authorities to consume over one million hectares of the Blue Mountains World Heritage listed pristine wilderness (approximating the area of Qatar) the over the following 79 days; the media branding it the ‘Gospers Mountain Megafire’.

The Gospers Mountain fire has now destroyed an area seven times the size of Singapore – more than 444,000 hectares from the western border of the Blue Mountains to the Central Coast hinterland, north to the Hunter Valley and south to the Hawkesbury and past the Bells Line of Road.

2.Wolgan Road Landslip Closure    [9th November 2022 – TBA, 12 months?]

As explained above.

 

 

Don’t Hold Your Breath for Lithgow Council

 

The question is whether Lithgow Council will repair another landslip near Lithgow at  Browns Gap before Wolgan Gap, and more importantly when?   Both gaps sustained landslip road closures around the same time in early November 2022.

What’s purportedly different with the Browns Gap Road closure on the south-eastern approach into Lithgow, is that the cause of the landslip may be not only due to heavy rain washing away poorly constructed road cuttings and embankments carved through surface sandstone rocks.

More concerning is that Council has also been long aware of historical underground coal mining subsidence throughout the Browns Gap hilly area.

Earlier this year, Lithgow Council’s engineers discovered what was assumed to be significant mine subsidence adjacent to Browns Gap Road, which has since been confirmed by the Mine Subsidence Advisory Board with recent inspections have identified tension cracking within the embankment of Browns Gap Road.

Council and its consultants have received copies of coal mine tracings of the area which confirm this.   The mining subsidence is widespread throughout the hills surrounding Lithgow, which is historic as the following local newspaper article offers dubious  reassurance from way back in 1930 about the coal mining at Browns Gap by Vale of Clwydd Coal and Brick Company, Ltd.

We point out that Wolgan Valley similarly has a history of underground coal shale mining from the 1870s.  That’s why the village of Newnes was established and for the  nearby Newnes Glow Worm Tunnel.  It was a coal railway tunnel [1907-1932] that served the Newnes oil shale mines.

In 2012, Centennial Coal’s* longwall mining operations at the Angus Place and Springvale Collieries near Lithgow were found to have affected Wolgan River and a number of swamps in the Cox’s River catchment – Narrow Swamp, East Wolgan Swamp and Junction Swamp.

[*Centennial Coal is foreign owned by multinational Banpu Public Company Limited headquartered in Thailand].

Questions for Lithgow Council

Has the landslip(s) at Wolgan Gap been caused by heavy rain washing away poorly constructed road cuttings and embankments, or also by underground coal mining subsidence?

As the local government representing the local residents and businesses of Wolgan Valley, what is Lithgow Council going to do about restoring reliable bitumen road access along Wolgan Road in and out of the Wolgan Valley, and when?

 

Don’t hold your breath for either gap to re-open any time soon.  Lithgow Council is not exactly geared up to apply for external grant funding to recover from disasters, let alone prepare for them, nor to respond to them.

Under Mayor Ray Thompson, it took Lithgow Council till October 2020 (7 years) to apply for and secure a $1 million grant from the NSW Government to help in bushfire recovery from the October 2013 State Mine Fire.

It took Lithgow Council until 4th October 2022 (2 years and 6 months) to apply for and secure a $239,651 events grant from the NSW Government to help in economic recovery from the start of NSW Government’s imposed 2-year pandemic lockdown (23 March 2020 – 18 February 2022).

But it seems none of that funding is to flow to Lithgow’s major art festival ‘Ironfest’ according to the event’s chief organisor Macgregor Ross.  This is despite Ironfest pre-pandemic being the biggest annual arts festival to take place in the NSW Central West Region attracting tourists from all around the world.  In 2019 (the last time the event was held due to COVID-19) over 20,000 people attended; contributing over $5 million to the local economy.

It took Lithgow Council till July 2021 (19 months) to apply for and secure a $6.5 million grant from the NSW Government to help in bushfire recovery from the December 2019 impacts from the NPWS Gospers Mountains Megablaze.

6th Feb 2023, Blue Mountains Gazette:

“My business is temporarily closed due to the failure of the Gap road. And whilst the opening of donkey steps may enable the resort to operate, my business and several other locally-owned and operated businesses are not afforded that opportunity.

Access limitations including hours of access … restricted vehicle access and escorting by property holders (and visiting non-residents) into the valley is impractical.”

“I support the recommendations but it doesn’t go far enough in building business confidence and will lead to the collapse of Wolgan Valley’s tourism industry.”

“Many residents continue to absorb the cost of alternative accommodation, transport and changes to work hours without financial assistance from any level of government. We continue to be told by council staff we are ineligible for assistance, despite repeated assurances to the contrary.”

“How would you feel if you had to cough up $1000 to access your vehicle through no fault of your own and once you find the money, where are you going to go tonight if you are unable to get home?”

“Council staff and our contractors are working 7 days a week to have this route operating as quickly as possible. 

The terrain is particularly steep and challenging, and for this reason, two-wheel drive access will not be immediately available. Some residents only have two -wheel drive vehicles though and these are down in the valley. They want to be able to use their vehicles to move beyond the valley.

With this in mind, Lithgow City Council has resolved to liaise with the government and seek financial assistance to retrieve two-wheel drive vehicles.  Council has arranged a contractor to complete this work, at a cost of $1,000 per vehicle. We hope that this assistance can be given but if not,  the Council has resolved to fund this.”

Lithgow mayor Maree Statham announced in April 2023 that $30 million would be made available for a permanent road solution, which will “make an alternate alignment a reality”.

Lithgow Mayor Maree Statham:

Lithgow Council’s parochial culture suits only its own tired self-interest.  It is past time for  this staid council and all its management to be placed under administration.  Lithgow regional ratepayers ought to consider the opportunity for the local government area to be better run in this 21st Century under economic leadership such as by the adjoining healthy Blue Mountains and/or Mudgee councils.

WOLGAN EMIRATES RESORT CLOSURE

Latest Update from the resort:  ^https://www.oneandonlyresorts.com/wolgan-valley

Update:  25 August 2023, Wolgan Valley Association news:

‘The small population living in the Wolgan Valley, north of Lithgow, have had their main road cut since November (2022) when a series of landslides – driven by heavy rainfall ( and abandoned and neglected coal mining subsistence) on slopes tripped of greenery follow the Black Summer bushfires (neglected by the NSW Government – NPWS and RFS)- forced its closure.

An access road on an old bush track called the Donkey Steps – which (bludging Lithgow Council reckons) is only suitable for four-wheel drives and contains winding blind corners and steep gradients – was opened afterwards, but the road is so treacherous that many have stopped using it.

It compares with the Mount Walker climb, neither ever attempted by a Lithgow councillor…

The cut-off ‘road’ has also forced the temporary closure of the (Arab billionaire owned) Emirates One&Only luxury resort in the valley, which employed 70 staff and was the airline’s only resort in Australia. (Not to mention a dozen other local businesses dependent upon visitor visitation).

Resident Sarah Denmead, who has to travel to Lithgow for work, says:

“The community right now is frustrated, deserted.  There’s nothing to look forward to – every milestone (useless Lithgow) council sets just goes by with no accountability.”

… cosy ratepayer-funded Lithgow Council seriously GAF?

SOURCE:  ‘Isolated town cut off from world‘, 2023-08-25, by journalist Lachlan Leeming, The Daily Telegraph newspaper, sourced by Wolgan Valley Association facebook page (^https://www.facebook.com/WolganValleyAssociation/).

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SOURCE:  ‘Off the beaten track: forgotten valley’s lockout disaster‘, 2023-11-04, by columnist feature writer Greg Bearup, The Weekend Australian newspaper, (available by subscription only, so no source link.  Also source was nicked by anonymous Lithgow.net  ^https://lithgow.net/44818218/off-the-beaten-track-forgotten-valleys-lockout-disaster#/

[We report on this news magazine article and we select relevant extracts but excluding the padded irrelevant verbiage by the author about Charles Darwin’s platypus and notions of climate change ideology …]

‘The closure of Wolgan Gap Rd has turned Wolgan Valley, less than 100km from the outskirts of Sydney, into one of the most isolated parts of Australia.

First came the fires, then came the rains and then the road gave way – the only road in and out.

By crow, the Wolgan Valley is less than 100km from the outskirts of Sydney, yet it is now one of the most isolated places in Australia. In November last year, the Lithgow council closed the Wolgan Gap Rd because of landslides. It has been closed ever since.

Businesses have folded, livelihoods have been ruined, cattle are stranded, farms and houses are unsalable and Australia’s most expensive hotel, the $160m Emirates One&Only Wolgan Valley Resort has closed its doors and 90 (local) staff have been made (permanently) redundant.

It could be years before a new road is open to cars and trucks.

Late in 2019, the region was terrorised by the Gosper’s Mountain fire.  More than a million hectares were engulfed in Australia’s biggest forest fire and dozens of houses were destroyed. Then came the rains, like never before. Across a rolling 12-month period, the area had 2½ times as much rain as they’d had since records began in the 1800s.

The (plateau top) Gave Way

On November 9 last year, the Wolgan Gap Rd was closed.

Massive tension cracks had developed – 40m in length, 2m deep and 600mm wide – which could give way at any time.

If that happened, tens of thousands of tonnes of soil and rock would cascade down the mountain. It’s now closed forever because of the likelihood of “catastrophic collapse”.

Locals have had to use a rough sealed road (dodgy Donkey Steps goat track) after the main road into the valley was closed.

The Wolgan Valley Association has been told it may have to hand back a million- dollar federal grant (to be matched by $1 million from the NSW government) to build a new community fire shelter.  They are unlikely to be able to spend the money in the
allotted period because, of course, the road is closed and they can’t get supplies and equipment in.

The disaster in the Wolgan Valley raises questions about the viability of living in certain parts of Australia. With the onset of more extreme weather, will some areas of the country simply become too expensive, or too dangerous, for human habitation?

End of a Dream

“The whole thing has just worn us down and for us not to want to be here any more,” says Darren Denmead, sitting on a couch in his living room with those enormous cliffs looming out through the window. “This has always been our dream place to live and all of a sudden it’s not.”

When the council closed the Wolgan Gap Rd last November the only access into the valley was via a precarious old fire trail called the Old Coach Rd, which was built early last century during the construction of a now disused railway line and tunnel. The rail line serviced the old shale oil refinery at Newnes in the Wolgan Valley and the tunnel is now the Glow Worm Tunnel.

A council four-wheel-drive would lead a convoy of four other vehicles in and out, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, up the Old Coach Rd. For those lucky enough to be in the convoy, it turned a 45-minute trip into Lithgow into a 1¾-hour slog.

Meanwhile, a new, temporary road – the Donkey Steps – was hastily built down a steep section, on the opposite side of the valley to where the Wolgan Gap Rd descends.

It opened in March this year. The road, just a few degrees off being one of the steepest public roads in the world, is closed to all vehicles apart from four- wheel drives. It’s too steep for trucks. It’s locked and any visitors have to be let in and accompanied by a resident.

It became such a hassle for Denmead, who was the principal of a primary school in Bathurst, that he relinquished his role at the beginning of term two and went on long service leave. His wife, Sarah, has had a long association with the valley.  Her great- grandfather was a Cobb and Co. coach driver who braved the Wolgan Gap early last century.  Her family has owned this farm, the Corn Paddock, since the 1940s.

They’ve not been able to run stock on their farm because the fences were destroyed by the fires.  Darren Denmead has been slashing his fallow paddocks in an attempt to mitigate the fire risk as they now face another ominous fire season.

His big fear is that the Emirates resort will simply shut up shop, for good.

Mr Denmead:

“If they go we’ve got no voice at all.  The importance of (the resort’s) clout, politically, has probably kept us in the game.  The government response to their plight – local, state and federal – has been woeful, and they keep getting bounced between various agencies, with none taking responsibility.”

Living through the bushfires was terrifying for all of them.

“Thinking you were going to die was pretty ordinary, I can tell you.”

Then came the rains.

He says the culverts had not been cleaned out and the road had not been properly maintained.

Mr Denmead:

“I think that some of the damage could have been avoided, if the preventative maintenance had happened.  But it’s too late for all that now.  If the resort was abandoned, it would probably be cheaper for the government to buy out all the landholders and turn it all back into national park rather than spending many tens of millions of dollars to put in a new road.  There are certainly rumours flying about that that could happen.”

 

The resort was initially keen to talk to this publication and to put us in contact with employees and former employees who had been affected. Word then came from higher up that no employee of the resort was authorised to speak.

This puzzling response has only fuelled more rumours about the future of the luxury resort. Are they trying to sell, people ask. Are they about to pull out?

At its peak, the resort employed about 130 people. It’s now down to a skeleton maintenance staff.  It was one of the biggest employers in Lithgow shire.  The resort issued a statement to The Australian (newspaper) confirming it would be closed for at least “this year and next”, until at least the end of 2024.

Lithgow Council Mayor Maree Statham’s:

“(The resort) was able to re-open on 1 April 2023 after a new ‘road’ was constructed (re-opened from the 1860s mine access) by Lithgow City Council.  However, the challenges of the road’s descent into the valley have made it impossible to continue supplying utilities and equipment to the degree required for the resort to operate smoothly.  As a result of this closure, it is with regret that we have had to make the difficult decision to let go of a number of valued colleagues. This decision was not taken lightly.”

[COMMENT:  This is bullshit.  This supposed “new road” is the historic dodgy 1860s Donkey Steps having an extremely steep descent of 32% steep grade section and taking 2 hours over 50km each way from Lithgow.  It’s a remote dangerous goat track.  Council has also ordered that it can only be used under direction of its nominated 4×4 operator.]

Around 90 staff, in total, have been made redundant.  The Australian confirmed this week that the resort’s general manager, Tim Stanhope, has resigned and is leaving to take up a post in Vietnam (never to return).

This has had a dramatic impact on the businesses that service the resort.  Ray Williams, who owns a butchery in nearby Portland, had been supplying meat to the hotel for many years.

“I just can’t understand why it’s been allowed to go on for so long without anyone doing anything about it,” Williams says.

I tell him the best estimate at the moment is three to five years – from now – for road works to be completed. “Emirates will obviously walk away from it if it is going to take that long,” he says. He hopes he can avoid laying off staff.

The residents believe that if this was a big abattoir, manufacturing plant, a mine or a power station that was cut off, there would have been much more publicity and much more pressure on politicians and bureaucrats to come up with a speedier solution.

The uncertainty is eating away at everyone. Life is on permanent hold.

Paul and Jane Vought have a magnificent view of those sandstone cliffs from their property, Woolpack.  Paul had been a tradesman in the mines and Jane worked at the NSW Police’s 24-hour call centre at Lithgow.

They both retired early with a plan to run a wedding reception centre in a paddock looking out to where the sun sets behind those dramatic walls of stone. Paul built the handsome venue with his own hands, spending more than $100,000 on materials. They had all the necessary approvals.

They’d built a website and had taken three bookings.

Wolgan Valley Weddings, ^https://wolganvalleyweddings.com/

And then the road was closed.

Paul Vought:

“We just can’t get people down here.  We tossed up buying a four-wheel drive bus to cart ’em down the Donkey Steps, but I just don’t think it’s feasible.”

He’s also got 30 head of cattle, which he can’t get out, and now he’s running out of feed.

“It’s heartbreaking, because we both gave up work to do this and it’s all fallen in a heap.”

Jane Vought adds:

“We were so excited that in that first month people came down to have a look and booked it. It was exactly what they wanted.”

They knew it was going to work. And then, disaster.

“It is just incredible to think that they have shut the whole valley.”

They say the communication about what will happen has been poor.

Paul:

“They just tell us what they think we want to hear.”

Kristie Kearney, an ecologist, lives further up the valley.

Website: ^https://wolganvalleyecotours.com.au/

 

Ms Kearney has been running a successful tourism business, taking small groups on walking tours around the Wolgan. Her business was decimated by the fires in 2019 and then, when the rains came (2020-2022) then the road collapsed, it became impossible to continue.

“It was heartbreaking.  I am incredibly passionate about what I do, being able to share this incredible part of the world with other people.”

She cites the fact that the community could lose its $2m grant for a community centre/fire shelter because they don’t fit into the right box. “It’s ludicrous,” she says. “It was a recommendation from all those inquiries (into the bushfires) that communities be more prepared … we were doing that, and now we may lose our funding to build a fire shelter.”

[Government care factor?  Go figure!]

A road too far

The general manager of Lithgow City Council, Craig Butler, says:

“There’s no quick and easy solution.”

Butler is proud of what the council has achieved with the construction of the Donkey Steps. “We got that approved and (constructed) in a record time,” he says.  It’s a small council with only 230 staff servicing 22,000 residents over an enormous area.

“We can’t build the road back where it was originally built – it’s too dangerous – and so we have to build a whole new road through the most wondrous country and there is only one throat through which you can logically create a road,” he says.

[There goes more scarce remnant wilderness.  There goes tourism. There goes tourist entrepreneurs and their enterprise investments and livelihoods.]

Even though Lithgow Council is responsible for the road, it simply doesn’t have the resources, the equipment or the expertise [nor the interest so it hasn’t even reached out for external funding], which is why consultants from Sydney have been called in to design a new route.  They are now looking at different designs and costs.  [What, a four-lane tunnel direct from Penrith?]

Lithgow Council:

“The guesstimate is above $30 million but we don’t know how far above $30 million.” 

Assurances have been given by the state and commonwealth governments that it will be funded.  As to how long it will take:

“We are at a point where we can’t be specific, but it is certainly a multi-year project.”

The council told residents it had identified three possible routes. They were not told how long it would be before they could drive on it.

[Butler blames climate change for all the neglect, so does Federal Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt.  The public servant bureaucrats luxuriating on the ratepayer teat at 180 Mort Street in Lithgow have not f’ing care, clue or plan].

If they are looking for a case study, [Watt’s staffer Andrew Colvin] should brave the Donkey Steps and head down into the Wolgan.   It is Watt’s department that has been threatening to withdraw the funding from the Wolgan Valley Association to build its new fire shelter.

Holding on to hope

Thomas Ebersoll has loved the Wolgan from the moment he stepped into the valley back in 1998, on a bushwalking and camping trip.

On that trip there was a sign outside the old, dilapidated Newnes Hotel (below image) on a steel picket which read: “For sale, inquire within“.

He couldn’t resist.

 

The hotel, which was closed then, and is now Ebersoll’s home, had been the drinking hole for the workers at the Newnes shale oil refinery – a massive industrial complex built in the early part of last century.  The ruins are in the forest, a few kilometres down the river from the hotel.

In those 25 years [1998-2023) Mr Ebersoll] has built four simple but beautiful cabins, which he rents out, along with camping spaces along the [Wolgan] river.  The sign out the front says: “Everything money can’t buy.”

His business has been decimated by the road closure.

People can still get in, by four wheel drive, but he has to let in every guest, and accompany them down the Donkey Steps.  It’s a 50km trip, there and back, for every guest.

Ebersoll:

“I’ve lost about 80 per cent of my cabin business [income].  It’s picking up a bit because people appreciate the quiet and the seclusion.”

[But] He’s lost virtually all his camping business.

Ebersoll is in his late 60’s.  All the cleaning, maintenance, the mowing and the chopping of wood was getting too much.  He was exhausted and ready to sell.

“I had made inquiries with the local real estate agent and he was about to set up a ‘worldwide’ campaign to market it.”

And then the road closed.

In the early part of last century a tunnel was cut through the mountain, he says, and 52km of rail track laid, by hand, to service the shale oil refinery and mine, just down the river from the hotel.  Back then, it took 16 months and it opened in 1907.

 

Ebersoll:

“I’m 68.  It’s a good time to move on, but it’ll probably be five to 10 years before we have a new road. I hope I can hold out till then.”

[Follow up reader comments to this original article of The Australian newspaper:  ‘Off the beaten track: forgotten valley’s lockout disaster’. We have selected out of the many comments those which we considered relevant, informed critique, and adding value to this issue.]  

Terry:

“I find it quite unbelievable that the government cannot repair the road that leads to one of Australia’s most famous resorts that provides a uniquely Australian experience.  What does this say to international visitors, don’t try and visit this beautiful part of Australia, because the NSW Government is incompetent and cannot fix a road!  We have become a truly stupid country.”

Simon:

“This article completely misses the point.  The reason the road has not been restored is completely down to political and bureaucratic failure.  This article just provides a very tenuous excuse for not rebuilding the road and does not pursue the actual reasons for not rebuilding the road. This article is also a complete failure as an attempt at journalism.”

Ian:

“100% poor excuses.”

Jason:

 

“A good article beaten up by the usual climate change conjecture.”

Terrence:

 

“Please Greg, don’t put everything down to climate change.”

George:

“So we could build a road into the valley in the 1830’s but can’t build one today?!? This is woke progress.”

Sceptic One:

“That’s so sweet. So, the CO2 from a local old power station is behind a change of local climate causing bushfires and landslides?”

Patrick:

“If council stayed out of it a private contractor would have it completed by now.”

Rudi:

“This started out as an interesting read, and then we got to climate catastrophism.”

Margaret:

“The potholes at the end of our street were caused by climate change as well.”

CoolCucumber:

 

“Most of these country roads were not well built in the first place, not maintained (we’re a big state) and over many years have suffered a lot of damage from reasons, but don’t further the increase in vehicle traffic. Those roads weren’t built for that volume of traffic.”

Otto:

“And a pointless referendum cost how much? Reconstruction of a vital road is a mere pittance in comparison, but then there are those ‘ important’ priorities to spend $ 32 billion.“

Fat John:

 

“It’s a bit of a stretch to claim that a thermal power station that faithfully serviced the local community for 60 years was in any way responsible for the road failure. Turning to mathematical chaos theory (remember the effect of a butterfly fluttering it’s wings?) I put forward the thought that this road failure may have been caused by nearby wind turbine blades going supersonic.”

Thors day:

 

“I just have the feeling that, if this problem had occurred in Europe (say The Netherlands or Switzerland ) they would have put to and sorted out a new road. Can you imagine the Swiss saying “oops, we will close that valley forever”? The Netherlands is below sea level and the Dutch started to deal with it, in the 1100s. The Romans built aqueducts that were still in use almost 2,000 years later. Are you seriously saying it is IMPOSSIBLE to build a road?”

Mary:

 

“If they keep rabbiting on about climate change they’ll get no help. And to blame a closed local power station is just stupidity. It’s just typical of our useless governments that billions are spent on the futures but absolutely nothing in the regions. Build the damn road and manage the undergrowth.”

GFC:

 

“We have waited 620 days and counting for the Shoalhaven Council to fix our sole access road. We pay land taxes, rates etc and live off grid. Council is hopeless. They really don’t care.  Council should work harder to fix the access road. Ruined the lives of many people.”

Make my day:

“Love the area. It is a crying shame for residents and the local economy that such beaurocratic bungling prevails. ‘Can remember a day at the Newnes pub when a distant trail bike approached with a crescendo of noise met with the then publican running out the front with a can of Mortein and performed a sweeping spray as the bike disappeared into the distance. Those were the days! They still can be if it weren’t for………………!”

Sandra:

“The Lithgow Council was being urged to build a new access road to the Wolgan Valley in the 1950’s because they were concerned about landslides closing the gap road: (^https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/219761321?searchTerm=wolgan%20valley%20road%20closure).

 

I grew up in the area and spent a lot of time in the valley in the ‘70’s and recall plenty of heavy rain, flooding and bushfires. 

 

In fact the Newnes Hotel used to be close to the river but was moved by volunteers in the 70’s, after particularly heavy rain and flooding, to its current site, otherwise it would have been long lost.

Back then, they would have just run a grader down the gap road and cleared away any land slip.  

Nowadays, the threat of litigation would cause the Council to close the road until it’s perfectly safe.

Rather than being the fault of the Wallerawang power station, I’d suggest that it more the fault of poor maintenance and natural erosion on a poorly sited road by a cash strapped council.

I feel sorry for the residents in the valley, particularly those with businesses, however it’s a shame Emirates don’t dig into their deep pockets and fund a solution to this issue. They should be taking the good with the bad.”

 

—————–

END OF SELECTED COMMENTS

[Ed:  May the protests prevail until the fix of Wolgan Gap Road and local compensation happens ASAP – fairly, both financially and emotionally].

 

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Well, locals publicising the plight of neglected Wolgan Valley via social media has merit.

A short silent drone-based video from May 2023 documenting the devastation to Wolgan Road access and the ongoing predicament is a worthy watch, available for free on the Wolgan Valley Association’s Facebook page.  The short documentary video is very professional and produced by Wolgan valley locals Eddie Martignago and Matt Bird, to their credit.

This may well be the start of something very big for both of them and be a catalyst for the eventual re-opening of Wolgan Valley.

GoTo: ^https://www.facebook.com/WolganValleyAssociation/videos

 

As a tour operator in the Blue Mountains region, we too “want to see the Wolgan accessible to everyone again”.  It is one of Australia’s magnificent tourism destinations.

Back in June 2023, after 40 job losses, Emirates One&Only’s resort’s Executive Sous Chef Pitam Gurung came up with a novel way to at least pay Lithgow Council’s rates by hooking up with Macallan whiskey makers to offer an exclusive single malt ‘scotch whiskey experience’ (with dinner and stay) for well-heeled guests via 007 style fly-in fly-out by helicopter from Sydney Airport.

By October 2023, Emirates One&Only applied for a permit to increase its helicopter flights from and to Sydney Airport from 14 to 105 flights per week.   To, no doubt, fly in the whiskey and t-bones, white truffles and strawberries Arnaud.

A noisy valley prospect for locals and wildlife alike.

Alas, prospects for Lithgow Council’s fixing the Wolgan Road access any time soon were dashed in November 2023 by its General Manager Craig Butler.

“This will be a multi-year project. There’s no getting around that fact.”

 

But the problem is Craig that all this is reactive ‘after the fact’.  Lithgow Council is not attuned with risk management thinking.  Has it ever been?

Lithgow Council’s preferred road repair contractor, WSP Engineering Consultant, has put repairing Wolgan Gap in the too hard basket.  WSP consultant, Mark Schofield, said one of the shortlisted options include a road that stops on the eastern side of the donkey steps track.

“It has a bridge at the top, which avoids having to do major cutting work i into the natural escarpment there. And it involves a switch back to enable us to get a bit of extra limb from the road.”

According to Mr Schofield, another option starts further north and starts to cut down towards the valley…

“At the point where it enters the valley to the east of the donkey steps track there, it’s already about 50 metres below ground level.  It enters the remainder of the valley after the bridge at a lower level down and so has less impact on those unstable areas of ground because the gradients in that area will the natural ground form, which is flatter and allows the gradients and curvature to be a lot easier.  In the sense of being multi-criteria assessment, there is material navigating between cost, environmental considerations. Recovered costs, engineering factors, constructability lessons, drivability and safety.”

Lithgow Council’s GM Butler has confirmed that until the permanent road is completed, the Donkey Steps will remain the only access road for residents (under mandatory supervision).  He anticipates a decision on which option will be chosen will be made early in 2024, well may be.

All this lot just confirms decades of abject neglect of the known inherent geotechnical risks of the region under Lithgow Council.

We suppose they just blame climate change.  Lithgow Council doesn’t even employ a geotechnical engineer or even a hydrologist, despite this greater Blue Mountains plateaued region having a high long-term annual rainfall average of 853mm and peaking in some years up to 1328mm*, plus with a history of underground coal mining left abandoned and rehabilitated since at least the 1930s.   *Source: ^https://www.farmonlineweather.com.au/climate/station.jsp?lt=site&lc=63224

Go figure.

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Further Reading:

[1]  ‘Closure of Wolgan Road, Wolgan Valley‘, Current Alerts, 2022-11-10, Wolgan Valley Association, ^https://wolganvalley.org.au/emergency-information/

[2]  ‘Closure of Wolgan Road, Wolgan Valley‘, 2022-11-10, Mirage News, ^https://www.miragenews.com/closure-of-wolgan-road-wolgan-valley-892944/

[5]   ‘Assessment Report‘ – Section 75W Modification – Emirates Luxury Tourist Resort, Wolgan Valley’, 2007-10-10, NSW Government Department of Planning, ^https://majorprojects.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/

[7]  ‘Lithgow Council to receive another $2 million for bushfire recovery‘, 2021-10-27, Lithgow Mercury, ^https://www.lithgowmercury.com.au/story/7486010/lithgow-council-to-receive-another-2-million-for-bushfire-recovery/

[12]  ‘Update- Browns Gap Road Closure‘, 2022-08-04, Council News, by Lithgow Council, ^https://www.councilnews.com.au/2022/08/19765423-Update-Browns-Gap-Road-Closure

[16]  ‘Dingo Gap‘,  ^https://dingogap.net.au/places/donkey-steps

[17] ‘Wolgan‘ (search location meaning),  ^https://www.bushexplorers.com.au/encyclopaedia?page=13&prop_ModuleId=2289

[18]  ‘Property History for 2600 Wolgan Rd, Wolgan Valley, NSW 2790‘, On The House, (a real estate property listings website), ^https://www.onthehouse.com.au/property/nsw/wolgan-valley-2790/2600-wolgan-rd-wolgan-valley-nsw-2790-14754354

[19]  ‘Emirates US$87m Australian resort temporarily closed due to bushfires‘, 2020-01-02, ^https://www.arabianbusiness.com/industries/travel-hospitality/436624-emirates-87m-australian-resort-temporarily-closed-due-to-bushfires

[20]  ‘Indefinite Pause At One&Only Wolgan Valley – Ultra-luxe retreat responds to state and national travel advisories‘, 2020-04-09, by Latte Luxury News, ^https://latteluxurynews.com/2020/04/09/indefinite-pause-at-oneonly-wolgan-valley/

[21]  ‘Free flights to Australia could become the price of hiring staff‘, 2021-12-05, by Fiona Carruthers, Travel Editor, Australian Financial Review, ^https://www.afr.com/companies/tourism/free-flights-to-australia-could-become-the-price-of-hiring-staff-20211203-p59ejv

[22]  ‘Transfers (to) Emirates One&Only Wolgan Valley‘ (from Sydney Airport Heliport by Eurocopter EC135P2e $7500 one way), ^https://www.sydneyhelitours.com.au/wolgan-valley-transfers

[23]  ‘Woes for Wolgan Valley‘, 2023-02-06, by Reidun Berntsen, Blue Mountains Gazette, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/8062148/woes-for-wolgan-valley/

[27]  ‘We want to see the Wolgan accessible to everyone again film puts isolation in spotlight‘, 2023-05-05, by Reidun Berntsen, journalist at Lithgow Mercury, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/8184162/we-want-to-see-the-wolgan-accessible-to-everyone-again-film-puts-isolation-in-spotlight/

[28]  ‘The Macallan partners with Emirates One & Only Wolgan Valley to launch a first-of-its-kind whisky experience in Australia‘, 2023-06-14, in Travel Weekly magazine, ^https://www.travelweekly.com.au/article/the-macallan-partners-with-emirates-one-only-wolgan-valley-to-launch-a-first-of-its-kind-whisky-experience-in-australia/

[29]  ‘Lithgow City Council consult with WSP for permanent Wolgan road solution‘, 2023-11-18, by Reidun Berntsen,journalist at Lithgow Mercury, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/8424318/this-will-be-a-multi-year-project-theres-no-getting-around-that-fact-wolgan-valley-road-update/