Historic town challenges an identikit mall

Local battle ... Rob Duffy, right, and Russell Holden, president and vice-president of the Mudgee Business Association, which opposes the development. 

Photo: Jon Reid 

January 20, 2007

Mudgee shopkeepers say a new complex will deter tourists, writes Steve Meacham.

WALK  down historic Church or Market streets in Mudgee on a sweltering summer's day and you are soon greeted by what the locals say are their main tourist drawcards.

Carefully preserved heritage buildings. Traditional, family-owned businesses that specialise in quaint goods you would struggle to find in Sydney. Funky bistros and cafes serving great lattes where you can escape the heat.

It is that mix of rural charm and city sophistication, coupled with its surrounding wineries, that has made Mudgee, reputedly the second oldest town west of the Great Dividing Range, one of the boom short-stay destinations in NSW over the past decade.

But today Mudgee is deeply divided. Shop windows all over town carry a simple slogan: "Stockland Mall. Too Big - Too Soon!"

Five days before Christmas, with what protesters say was indecent haste, Mid-Western Regional Council voted by five votes to four to approve a development application by the Stockland group to build a $38 million enclosed-style shopping centre on land the council owns. Critics say Stockland Mudgee, incorporating a supermarket, discount store, greengrocer and "25 speciality shops" under one roof, with underground parking for 292 cars, is a massive extension of what was originally envisaged under the development control plan

It also differs significantly from the preferred scheme proposed by Red8, a Queensland-based property group that won the right to develop the site last May before selling that right to Stockland in June.

The result, critics say, is that many existing shopkeepers, already working on tight margins because of the drought and the crisis in the wine industry, will be forced out of business, wrecking the rural ambience of the town centre and substantially reducing Mudgee's appeal to tourists.

"What we offer is something different," said John Medcalf, president of Mudgee Regional Tourism Incorporated.

"A unique streetscape, one council has spent a considerable amount of money on preserving. That's what city people are looking for. They don't want to come to Mudgee and duplicate their environment at home."

No one doubts the mall, full of familiar franchise names, will be successful. But at what social and environmental cost?

Can Mudgee's 8000-strong population support 25 extra shops when there are already a dozen "To let" signs following the recent arrival of a Big W and a Bunnings Warehouse? Can businesses that support local sports groups and charities continue to do so when they face stiff new competition? Will most of

the 300 extra jobs promised by Stockland be - in the words of David Cockerill, a bookshop owner and olive farmer - "for 16-year old checkout chicks"?

"This is the equivalent of putting Penrith Plaza into Mudgee," said Russell Holden, vice-president of the 75-strong Mudgee Business Association. Instead of vibrant streets full of quirky character, Mudgee would increasingly become an identikit community, no different from countless others.

That is denied by Stewart White, for Stockland Shopping Centre Division, who says "the design and layout of the centre has been developed with the needs of the local community in mind". At 8300 square metres, it would be one of the smallest shopping centres of the 41 owned by Stockland, half the size of

Stockland Bathurst.

However, Gwenda O'Neill, a hairdresser, whose husband, James, runs the Butcher Shop Cafe, insists it was Mudgee's "village atmosphere and its cute shops" that persuaded them to make the lifestyle choice to move from Sydney five years ago. She fears the mall will change the town's ambience irrevocably.

"Tourists won't come to a concrete jungle. They'll go to Leura instead."

But is there anything residents can do to prevent, reduce the size of or delay the mall? Probably not, admits the business association, although it is taking legal advice. Others recommend a boycott, similar to the one residents of Maleny famously waged against an unwanted Woolworths.

However, the Mayor of Mudgee, Percy Thompson, believes critics are being alarmist. The site had long been designated for retail use, and Stockland's scheme complied with the development control plan, he said.

The council had appointed an independent assessor, recognising it had a conflict of interest as both the planning authority and the vendor of the land.

The assessor recommended that Stockland reduce the number of speciality shops from 30 to 25, which had been adopted.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Stockland scheme is worth $2.6 million to the council.

Although Mr Thompson accepts the issue has split the town, and that "there might be some initial impact" on existing shops, he insisted there would be long-term benefits. The mall would encourage people from outlying parts of the shire to shop in Mudgee rather than Dubbo, Bathurst or Lithgow.

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