Maitland City Council's Walka Water Works Q&A answers the community's questions

Residents were invited to submit questions ahead of time, to be answered by council via livestream.

Common questions surrounded who will be responsible for the site, managing future expansions, where profits will go and community access.

In October 2022 Maitland City Council, the NSW Government and Reflections Holiday Parks first announced plans for improvements to Walka Water Works, including overnight visitor accommodation and restoring the 1885 pumphouse building.

Council has since secured $15.1 million in funding for stage one of the project, and detailed planning is yet to begin.

In the news:

Maitland City Council general manager David Evans and Maitland mayor Philip Penfold gathered in the council chamber with relevant council staff for the question and answer session.

The first question was "without state funding large parts of Walka will remain closed - why?".

Mr Evans said as Walka Water Works is Crown Land, the responsibility for remediation of the site sits with the state.

"The remediation cost is significant, and it will need to be allocated over a number of state budget cycles," he said.

"The funding for this proposal is through a separate fund, the regional tourism activation fund. So there are two separate funding streams, one for this project and one specifically with respect to the remediation of the site."

The $15.1 million in funding for Stage 1 of the project is made up of $10 million from the NSW government's Regional Tourism Activation Fund, $2 million from Maitland City Council, $1.6 million from Reflections Holiday Parks and $1.5 million from Crown Lands.

A question submitted asked "How much will the $2 million council loan end up costing ratepayers, for example, by the end of the loan how much will Maitland City Council have paid in total".

Mr Evans said the loan will end up costing a total of $2,505,683 based on a 10 year term at a 4.5 per cent interest rate.

Another question Mr Evans answered revealed the approximate split of where the funding will go.

"Broadly speaking, the split is approximately $6.1 million of the total $15.1 million would go to the provision of the accommodation offering on the site, including access road within the site and utilities within the site," he said.

"The remaining $9 million is the funding available to council for the work on the restoration and partial activation of the pumphouse building, some minor works on the annex and also work on the surrounds of the pumphouse building including specifically the remediation of the eastern lawn."

Mr Evans also confirmed the caravan park will not be available for occupation by permanent residents.

Related:

Council's Culture Community and Recreation group manager Judy Jaeger answered a question about how Reflections Holiday Parks will be kept accountable for maintaining the site.

Ms Jaeger said Reflections will only manage the onsite accommodation element.

"Council will continue to maintain the rest of the site and this will be documented in a management agreement that will be but in place between Reflections Holiday Parks and Maitland City Council," she said.

Answering a question about where in Maitland residents will be able to go to 'get away from it all' after Walka has a holiday park, Ms Jaeger confirmed Walka will still be accessible to the public as usual.

"The good news is the community nature reserve at Walka will be preserved and people can continue to use it and enjoy the areas they currently do," she said.

"I think the key message here is that the way you use Walka is how you can continue to use Walka."

Ms Jaeger also said council will make sure as a wedding venue Walka Water Works will be at a reasonable and competitive, but not out of reach price point.

Vibrant City executive manager Rachel MacLucas said the reason the pumphouse restoration is tied to the holiday park funding is "the accommodation is there to actually support the use of the pumphouse building and the pumphouse lawn for weddings, as well as filling a gap in the local accommodation offering".

Infrastructure and Works group manager David Maloney, while answering a question about traffic consequences of caravans, said a traffic management study will be undertaken to come up with a preferred route for how to get to Walka Water Works.

Cr Penfold answered a question about profits going into Crown Land, and what that means for Walka Water Works.

"Reflections Holiday Parks operate Crown Land sites for these purposes in many dozens of locations across NSW," he said.

"Any profits, for want of a better word, that are generated return to Crown Land in general across NSW, they're not specifically allocated to the Walka pot.

"But I'd be confident that Reflections doing notable work in that area would see the need to continue to invest in that area, and I'm sure they will continue to invest in Walka over time."

Planning and Environment group manager Matt Prendergast said an environmental impact statement, along with other required studies, will be prepared and available to the public once a Development Application has been prepared and is on public exhibition.

Answering a question submitted on the Facebook Live chat, Building Services operations manager Jeff Wilson said the full remediation of the site is dependant on when funding is available.

"In terms of actual construction works, we believe this could take 12 to 18 months onsite if all funding was available," he said.

The full livestream is currently available to view on Maitland City Council's Facebook page.