Myuna Bay Sport and Recreation Centre: Lake Macquarie MP Greg Piper felt 'blindsided'

At Monday night's council meeting, Lake Macquarie mayor Kay Fraser raised the development application to demolish and flatten the site - questioning whether Eraring's Embankment Stabilisation Project could mitigate the risks that saw it closed almost overnight in 2019.

Mr Piper said he met with the mayor in Sydney last week and he was surprised to see her commentary made public at Monday's council meeting.

"What I would say is that I've seen four years of community frustration, and I fully understand that frustration but the reality is it's a bit rich coming from council when it very much understands the complexity around some of these major developments - and they've had their own problems in the past," he said.

"It's all well and good for council to say these things, but they struggle as well.

"So to try to come out with a blindside and enter into a debate that's not within their remit is not helpful, I'm trying to get this done so if Kay wants to be helpful she can talk to me."

The controversial closure of the Myuna Bay centre four years ago was the result of concerns about the risks the nearby Eraring Power Station's coal ash dam posed in the event of a major earthquake.

The mayoral minute pointed out there had been "little progress" made on plans for a new centre at Morisset and said the council had heard there are "impediments" to using the site and that alternatives were being sought.

It suggested the state government should reconsider demolishing structures at Myuna Bay and look at the potential for future use.

Mr Piper said the alternative options mentioned in the mayoral minute are the Morisset Showground, which the council manages, and a site behind Morisset pool.

According to him, those "impediments" are just the statutory process of transferring the land at Morisset from NSW Parks and Wildlife into the hands of the NSW Office of Sport.

He said there was no possibility of going back to the former site, after Dams Safety NSW experts ruled the risk couldn't be mitigated.

"If Kay Fraser had the foresight to ask me that I would have explained that we've been back to the minister, back to the Dams Safety NSW board with that exact question - and they have said no," he said.

"It can't be done that way, Dams Safety NSW is the authority and its expert panel doesn't have political intervention or lay people on it, they're all highly skilled and they said no."

However, according to Dams Safety NSW chief executive Chris Salkovic - the decision or continued closure of Myuna Bay Sport and Recreation Centre had nothing to do with the authority.

"We did an independent review of the risk assessment done by Origin Energy and their consultants just to confirm the risk is real, it's legitimate and we confirmed that," he said.

"Eraring has provided us with a plan for mitigating the risks and we have been going out and doing assessments to make sure they are doing the right works, whether that leads to the centre being opened again, that's not a decision for us - it's a decision for the dam owner."

Mr Salkovic said he did not recall being contacted about the centre in three or four years.

The Department of Regional NSW lodged the development application with the council to demolish and decommission the site earlier this month.

Although the council is the assessor, it cannot refuse or include conditions on an approval of the application without the agreement of the minister.

Mayor Kay Fraser told the Newcastle Herald she met with both Mr Piper and Minister for Sport Steve Kamper last week, asking them to press pause on the demolition of the current site.

"The community has been left with no idea what's going on, I thought councillors should get involved in the discussion, raise the issue and talk about the importance of that site," she said.

"We've been talking about this for four years, about Eraring, Morisset hospital and a whole range of sites but nothing has been delivered, I'm getting frustrated and the community is getting frustrated - we have no plans.

"Let's take a deep breath and look further into it - because I wasn't even aware the department was going to lodge a DA, I was blindsided by that as well."

A NSW Office of Sport spokesman said it had consulted extensively with the council about the demolition of the former site.

"The safety risks that were identified by an independent review when Myuna Bay Sport and Recreation Centre was originally closed have not changed," he said.

"Following the demolition of the centre the site will remain in public ownership."

He confirmed the state government had no plans for the future use of the site.

On Monday, Cr Fraser was not the only one ready to take the state government to task, deputy mayor Adam Shultz said he regularly faced questions about the project from the public.

"I think since 2019 we have seen, from my perspective anyway, really four years of inertia from the state government," he said.

Cr Belcher said the importance of the site could not be underestimated.

"The way that it was done, it seemed at the eleventh hour in the dead of night this facility was ripped out from under us without any forewarning to council or the community," he said.

"That certainly left a fairly bitter taste in the mouths of residents on the western side of Lake Macquarie.

"We say it time and time again in this chamber, it is a growth area of our city, an economic driver of our city the south-western corridor and to not have a recreational asset like this is really doing a disservice to our community."

The DA is on public exhibition until September 1 on Lake Macquarie council's website.

IN THE NEWS: