Wollongong’s tourism board is calling on residents passionate about turning Mount Keira into an adventure park to speak up over the coming weeks.
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Destination Wollongong boss Mark Sleigh said it was vital activities like mountain biking and a cable car up the mountain remained front and centre as Wollongong City Council begins public consultation on a future vision for the mountain’s summit.
The tourism body released a proposal for a “Mount Keira Adventure Playground” in 2014, saying the peak was under-used and could help to boost the region’s overnight visitors, create jobs for unskilled youth and help to change people’s perceptions about Wollongong.
Central to this ambitious plan was a series of adventure tourism attractions, including a scenic “gondola” linking the base of the mountain with the summit and the formalisation of the existing unauthorised mountain bike trails in the escarpment.
Now, as the council starts working with TRC Tourism to build a “vision document” for the land it controls, Mr Sleigh wants the adventure playground concept to be back on the agenda.
“The most important part of this process for me is the breadth of community engagement that comes out of it,” he said.
“It’s one thing for anyone to have a vision, but if the community doesn’t buy into it and engage with it, it’s irrelevant.”
While Destination Wollongong’s plans for mountain biking and the cable car would exist outside the boundaries of the council-managed land – which only makes up a tiny portion of the escarpment – Mr Sleigh said it was important to get the planning for the summit park right to allow for future development.
“My vision for the summit park is that you could go up there with the kids on a Saturday and there’s be something for everyone – mountain biking, the gondola – and then you could meet up for lunch afterwards and head home after a great day out,” he said.
“You stand up there at the summit park and you feel like you can touch the city, it takes seven minutes to drive up there from Crown Street and you don’t get that anywhere.”
In recent weeks, the tourism board has adopted an updated Mount Keira Adventure Park strategy which details some of the next steps needed to make its plans a reality.
It notes the council’s current consultation process is vital, but says more needs to be done to bring landholders together so that all are working towards the same vision.
Mr Sleigh said a ‘’project control group’’ aimed to unlock the Illawarra escarpment.
More information is available at the haveyoursaywollongong.com.au website.