Environmental Protection and Regeneration
We are fortunate to live in a leafy green shire but with rezoning of land by the State Government, the arrival of the (much needed) Metro and the housing affordability crisis, rapid urban development is placing increasing pressures on our natural environment.
Greens on Council will:
- Support sustainable development and the strengthening of building codes to ensure buildings and infrastructure adopt best-practice design by minimising energy and water consumption, generating solar energy and using eco-friendly materials. We’re experiencing more frequent and extreme weather events, including heatwaves. With better planning, we can reduce climate impacts in urban environments and create more livable and safe places to live, work and play now and into the future.
- Support a biodiversity management strategy for our Shire and include water quality testing of creeks.
- Increase efforts to conserve local threatened species (platypus, koala, powerful owl, blue gum high forest) and their habitat. Work to protect, regenerate and rewild native bushland so that native bird and animal species can survive alongside suburbia, subject to appropriate consultation with the Darug people.
- Support the creation of new green spaces that build connections between people and support wildlife, including community gardens and family-friendly parks. Build sporting fields in appropriate areas where critically endangered flora and fauna will not be impacted.
- Encourage council to plant more trees, require developers to allow room for trees/shade, retain significant trees on private building sites, and regenerate green corridor connections between parks and bushland.
- Support the Environment Centre at Annangrove by funding it to be open all week instead of 2 days per week and promoting free workshops to the community.
- Increase funding for environmental and bush restoration groups and increase opportunities for community engagement and education. Facilitate an environmental citizens advisory committee to liaise between the community and the council on environmental concerns.
- Support a community recycling centre and consistently look for better solutions for waste including soft plastics. Look for better solutions to kerbside collection materials which end up in landfill. Encourage reduce, reuse, recycle principles and advocate for community/ social enterprises such as repair workshops. Food and organics commercial composting will be introduced in 2027
- Improve our active transport networks (for cycling, walking, wheeled mobility aids, prams) which will reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality, reduce carbon emissions and improve the overall health of communities. Try to remove the barriers that stop so many of us walking, wheeling or cycling between our homes and workplaces, shops and cultural places and make it easier to ride to where you need to go, by introducing an extended network of bike lanes and racks, creating end-trip facilities at transport hubs, and improving road safety.