Five-megawatt Solar Farm and Resource Recovery Center opens at Summer Hill

BY ISABEL EVERETT

An $8 million dollar, five-megawatt solar farm and $6 million dollar resource recovery center has opened at Summer Hill Waste Management center.

The solar farm spans the length of 5 football fields, sitting on a previous land fill site, and is expected to save rate payers around $9 million dollars over its 25-year life span. 

The farm will produce enough energy to power the equivalent of 1,300 households, significantly cutting councils electricity costs. 

"Its an impressive site to see whats on the surface, but to also understand that this is on a prior landfill site that wasn't capable of any agricultural purpose, so to give it such a good environmental purpose is really clever," Port Stephens MP and Shadow Minister for the Environment Kate Washington said. 

A recent purchase-power agreement to source electricity from the state's largest wind farm, moves Newcastle city council to become the first local government in NSW to move to 100 percent renewable's as of next year. 

"Newcastle city council is the first council to have created and built a solar farm and as of January first, all of councils operations will be sourced from renewable energy and that's a remarkable outcome," Kate Washington said.  

Newcastle residents can drop off pre-sorted recyclables such as scrap metals, sorted yellow bin recyclables, paper and cardboard, clean untreated wood and soft plastic at the Resource Recovery Center free of charge, diverting around 5,700 tonnes of waste from landfill each year. 

"Newcastle city council is doing exactly what we need to see happening, they are giving people the opportunity to be more environmentally conscious," Kate Washington said. 

"Communities across the state are already there, they want to know what they can do to achieve better environmental outcomes, to reduce land fill and improve our sustainability." 

State MP for Port Stephens Kate Washington, Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes and Cr Peta Winney-Baartz 

State MP for Port Stephens Kate Washington, City of Newcastle Business Development Manager Mark Johnson,Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes, Hon Taylor Martin MLC and Cr Peta Winney-Baartz 

Catholic Church Under Fire For Sale of Former Empire Hotel

BY MADELAINE MCNEILL

The Maitland-Newcastle Diocese has come under fire for selling the former Empire Hotel site where they had planned to construct affordable housing.

Diocese Vice Chancellor Administration, Sean Scanlon, says a 'frenzy of activity' within the local building industry has raised construction costs, and building affordable housing on the Hunter Street site became infeasible.

Labor Deputy Lord Mayor Declan Clausen has accused the Church of 'land-banking' by selling the property after receiving approval to build in December, but Mr Scanlon denied the accusation.

He says the decision to sell came down to struggles with cost constraints and a lack of support.

"(Construction costs were) something like $7 million higher than we first anticipated. That made the project effectively unviable," said Mr Scanlon.

"It needs to be viable to be affordable to the ultimate recipients of that housing, and that made it extremely difficult for this to work."

The Church was successful in having infrastructure provision fees discounted due to the affordable housing component of the project, but extra financial help was denied by the Hunter Development Corporation and Newcastle City Council.

"We didn't look to sell this, necessarily," explained Mr Scanlon. "Without us prompting, the builders then approached us to see whether we would be willing to sell the property to them,"

"It seemed like a sensible thing for us to do."

The Catholic Church received a $5.5 million profit from the sale, which Mr Scanlon says will ultimately be put towards funding more positive activities in the community.

The Former Empire Hotel site on Hunter Street. Picture: theherald.com.au

Newcastle Council Could See it's Youngest Ever Deputy Lord Mayor

BY JESSICA ROUSE

Newcastle Council could see it's youngest ever deputy lord mayor when councillors meet for the first time tonight since the local government elections.

Labor Councillor Declan Clausen has put his hand up for the job, at just 25 years of age.

He says his experience on council over the past three years will be very useful in what is a hectic time in Newcastle.

"It's quite a busy time for the city and I certainly know there's an awful lot of work for our Lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes and I'd really like the opportunity to continue to work with her and support her in her role as the chief advocate of Newcastle,"

"I've been on council for three years now and across that time I've certainly been an active councillor, I'm on a number of committees and have sought to have been involved in some of the key decision-making across this last term. Since I've been elected to council its seen $2 billion worth of development applications approved for council for example," said Councillor Clausen.

The first meeting of the new look council will mostly involve introducing the new councillors to the chamber, and the Lord Mayor along with all of the Councillors will be sworn in.

Councillor Declan Clausen Image Australian Financial Review