State Member for Wallsend, Sonia Hornery MP has tabled a Notice of Motion in Parliament calling on the NSW Water Minister to direct Hunter Water Corporation to address the essential upgrades needed on the stormwater assets in Wallsend CBD.
Hunter Water had previously advised Ms Hornery that without a regulatory requirement from the Minister to address flooding, they would not be committing funding to fix the flooding problem in the Wallsend CBD, instead shifting that blame to City of Newcastle.
The Notice of Motion calls on the Minister to direct Hunter Water to expand the stormwater assets around Wallsend CBD to an appropriate level so that flooding risk may be minimised.
“In 2007, during the Pasha Bulka storms, Wallsend CBD was besieged by storms and flooding” said Ms Hornery.
“Since then the threat of flooding of a similar scale has been very real. In 2015 we came very close and even in July of this year the water was topping the stormwater drains of Ironbark Creek running through the CBD”.
“In 2020, City of Newcastle committed funding to the completion of works to replace Tyrrell Street, Boscawen Street and Nelson Street Bridges. However, the widening of stormwater canals owned and operated by Hunter Water remains the most crucial step in alleviating the fears of local home and business owners who would be the victims of wide scale flooding”.
“The NSW Government have rightly undertaken to fund flooding mitigation in other parts of the Hunter however have continuously neglected to address the very real risk of Wallsend flooding”.
“I have written to the Minister, I have asked the Minister’s office for a meeting and now I have again called for action from the Minister in the Parliament. It is up to the Minister now to act on this issue and use his discretion to direct Hunter Water to fix these issues”.