You are hereForums / By Discipline / Mountain (off road) / By Location / Australia / NSW / Blue Mountains / Chicken Run & Headless Hut Destruction
Chicken Run & Headless Hut Destruction
Well, it seems that BMCC without ANY consultation whatsoever has moved in a heavy excavator and chainsaws to flatten Chicken Run & Headless Hut.
Seems to be a new low that absolutely no consultation was entered into before rolling in the diggers...
- Login to post comments
- Bookmark & share
Tags
So totally disgust with what has happened, I can not even begin to put it into words.!
Please don't blame council for this one. Even our contact had zero idea about it happening. The destruction was from the Crown Lands Department.
Seems there are a few facts missing from this though.
First - the excavator operators claimed to be working for BMCC
Second - the first point means that BMCC would have been aware
Third - disregarding that it wasn't BMCC and is in fact Crown Lands, then why didn't Crown Lands enter into any sort of dialogue or notice beforehand?
Somethings not quite stacking up
For point three I don't think Crown lands would give a damn about entering into any dialogue as they are just a govt dept going through their motions. Also who would they open a dialogue with and why would they care to?
The only reason there is a dialogue with BMCC is because BMORC and some other mtbers choose to as do BM Council themselves. This sort of dialogue is to avoid this sort of thing happening and has successfully done so.
As far as point one I would assume a sweeping general statement given by the operator but I have asked council to clarify.
EDIT: A council statement is
"Suffice to say that BMCC does not undertake works on land that is not owned by or under the care and control of, BMCC. To do so would be illegal. In this instance, the land is owned and managed by NSW Crown Lands."
A map of the zoning is here
http://www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/bmccmap/maps.cfm?rid=...
It's all a veil of secrecy and no one will ever really know
Council will just say it wasn't us, and Dept of lands will say we don't have to tell you
Someone from council would have to have tipped off Dept of lands though, would they not
Why would citizens contact dept of lands about trails they don't like
Who would consider contacting Dept of Lands Parramatta direct to tip off trail construction (except someone from council alerted by a member of the public)
Whatever it is, it highlights the complete lack of facilities in the mountains
An area with more freaking bush than most other states in total (I made that up)
Yet in that huge area of bush, we have 2 trails that we can say are authorised
And one of them was an existing trail anyway and the other could almost be considered the Hawkesbury
And they wonder why we need to build our own trails??
I'm not wanting to take away from what you guys have done as far as working with council goes
It's not about that at all
Lots and lots of conjecture there and I am yet to see the veil of secrecy. But people do love a conspiracy, I'd rather work on facts, of which at this stage there are only a few basics.
This is why I am communicating with Crown Lands to find out about this and see what actually triggered it.
It does however, as you say, highlight the very small number of authorised trails in the mountains.
The decimation was done on a quiet Monday before lunch and was happened upon by riders
The contractors driving the machinery stated that they were working under the direction of Blue Mountains Council
You're right - the facts seem quite clear
Now it's council saying it wasn't us, it was Crown Lands