Hot off the press from the Independent Planning Commission, the owners of the Bombo Quarry - Boral and Transport Asset Management (TAM) - have secured a highly coveted, but extremely rare planning decision: the Ministerial call-in.

The last time we had officially heard from Boral and TAM (formerly the Transport Asset Holding Entity), they were preparing to submit their final masterplan for the Quarry “later in 2024”, as per the Bombo Quarry project website.

It's amazing what nine months, a housing strategy and a by-election win for the Labor Government can do.

Don’t get us wrong. Here at The Bugle, it’s refreshing that there actually, maybe, hopefully, might be actual positive change coming to the Quarry.

Anyone who has been part of our community has heard ad nauseum over the past decade that remediation of the quarry was just around the corner. And that public benefits would be delivered, soon after.

Now we definitively know that it is unlikely to be that simple.

A quick perusal of the IPC advice to Planning Minister Paul Scully reveals a few pieces of information that the community had speculated about, but never truly knew the details of.

Some quick facts for those playing at home:

The total amount of fill required is somewhere between 2,200,000m2 – 2,500,000m2

To import this amount of fill onto the site, it will take approximately five years, made up of:

147,000–167,000 total truck movements, or

31,800–39,750 truck movements per year, or

120-150 truck movements per day.

Back when TAHE presented to the community in July 2024, they stated they could not definitively say when quarrying activities would cease.

The Urbis request for the Ministerial Call-in states that “it is anticipated that quarrying will continue for around five years on the TAM site”.

Conservatively, this could mean that the total site remediation may not be complete until 2032.

Not quite the silver bullet solution we were after, but at least it’s a start.

Considering the site’s importance to Kiama Council’s structure plan and connecting the site to the new Riversdale Drive precinct, it seems there will be enough time to actually undertake strategic planning and ensure the roads and infrastructure are delivered to/from the Princes Highway towards the future Riversdale Road precinct.

While it is obvious this remediation assessment and process is highly technical, and probably best placed as a State Significant Development with the boffins at the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, this excerpt from the closed-door IPC meeting caught our eye:

MR PATERSON: Yes. We talked about exhibition of the state significant rezoning project as a possibility for mid to early 2026, so that might tie itself nicely with an SSD exhibition.

Mr Paterson is, of course, Ed Paterson, Council’s Director of Strategies and Communities and the “we” refers to the conversation that Council has had with DPHI regarding Bombo Quarry.

While the Ministerial Call-in is only for a State Significant Development Application for remediation, it appears further discussions are also being had about the rezoning for housing and employment.

By our accounts, this is the first time the public has heard that the rezoning of the site would also be handled by the State Government and DPHI.

We were always told the rezoning and future development would be handled by Kiama Council and the community would have the final say on what is being proposed – particularly as many see Bombo Quarry as not only an answer to housing, but significant employment and industrial land.

Now it appears otherwise.

The Bugle’s View is that while the community should be pleased there is progress on the Bombo Quarry front, we wholeheartedly do not endorse a “back door” for the site to be rezoned without the community’s input.