We are anxiously awaiting to hear if the Western Australian Planning Commission (WAPC) has saved Lemnos St Bush. The WAPC met on 12th December to decide the bushland's fate after LandCorp sought a review of the Statutory Planning Commission's decision, which would have saved most of the Banksia Woodland.

In the planning process, LandCorp has the right to review the decision, but the public has none.

The decisions made by the WAPC are confidential and the minutes are not published or distributed. So we must wait to hear from the WAPC directly. It is highly frustrating.

We also disagree with LandCorp's Chief Operation Officer's comments in the attached article claiming that LandCorp's proposal is unlikely to have a significant effect on the environment.

There has never been a full environmental impact assessment conducted on the impacts that the proposal will have on the ecological linkage and its function, the surrounding bushlands, or the different types of wildlife so his statement is unsubstantiated. 

Mr. Mudford's statement refers to an early assessment of the impacts on Carnaby’s Cockatoos - Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES). Unfortunately, this assessment process does not look at the cumulative impacts of individual developments, a major flaw in the process that needs fixing. So when a small patch like this is assessed it is claimed it will not have an impact on these birds. Well! That means a 1000 of these patches can be given the green light today because they are looked at individually.  This is literally happening.

Developers use this loophole, time and time again, to say that their development won’t have a significant impact on the cockatoos and hence the 'environment'. But you only have to look around you and see the bushlands and birds disappearing in the city to realise that these small developments are having a huge impact.

This clearly shows that the planning process is failing to evaluate the local and regional significance of our bushlands. Yes. You are led to believe that the environment has been properly assessed, but it has not.

LandCorp conveniently omitted conducting a proper environmental assessment on this important linkage. And they conveniently ignored the key planning policies that were contrary to their desired outcome to develop the bushland.

It seems that LandCorp is just acting in the best interests of the developer, not the wildlife or the community.