Was it just yesterday we were taking some action for mountain biking to become the Next Big Thing for Wollongong's economy?

A Concept Plan and a Draft Strategy had been developed, Wollongong City Council and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) appeared to be working together, and an innovative approach to using our natural assets without destroying them was on the cards.

It was December, and yesterday seems so far away. What seemed like can-do plan for some mostly environmentally-friendly ways to use Wollongong's natural assets is now on a government desk.

In the NPWS, that is, which itself was in the Office of Environment and Heritage, until recently, when OEH was scrapped, and made part of a "Planning and Industry cluster", but wheels move slowly, and the new arrangements aren't reflected on the relevant departments' websites. So where are they? Who even knows?

NPWS can't even give an estimate on when it might report on the issue. We just have to wait. It will come later.

Remember those promises when Labor was in power for another study or review into the Maldon-Dombarton rail link, none of which got the thing built.

Along with (too often) hate, the stock in trade of politics is hope. If they can claim your hope, then they can probably get your vote without even delivering.

We know this feeling well - that Wollongong is just on the edge of securing that economic saviour which will deliver us from substandard wealth, governmental neglect, and decades of reliance on a steelworks that employs a fraction of the people it did when we signed up to be a company town.

Maldon to Dombarton (a desert mirage). The finance services boom (hasn't worked out). MagLev! (the magnetically levitating super-fast train). Remember the Monorail episode of the Simpsons?

Mountain biking isn't a cargo cult, or something to base an entire city's economy on. But it seems like such a smart way to use natural assets to attract spenders. And those bike riders are a keen lot - their bikes probably cost more than our first two cars.

Just look at the wild success of mountain bike parks around the world, including their roles in helping turn around the despressed towns of Derby and Madena in Tasmania.

And then ... it hit the energy-sucking grind of the bureaucracy.

The local Aboriginal land council opposes the plan, but Paul Knight's claim that riders on Mt Keira is like "allowing bike riding on Uluru" is a little strange, given there are already cars, bikes, trucks and walkers all over Mt Keira. Surely we can manage respectful consultation with indigenous representatives, for a win-win.

But let's not have the downhill stretch held up by a rusty chain of bureaucracy.