The Grose River bridge route goes through this family’s home – have they been treated fairly?

The first Marian Wilcox says she knew of the plan to send a bulldozer through her family home was when she saw the route for the proposed Grose River Bridge at a public meeting.

Her son objected and Mrs Wilcox was ushered to the back of the hall – and that’s how the Wilcoxes believe they have been treated all along, sidelined, and, they say, denied basic information from Hawkesbury Council, Transport for NSW, and developers Redbank who are bankrolling the new bridge, the plans for which are now on public exhibition.

Part of the Wilcox family’s farm which will disappear when the Grose River Bridge route goes through

The Wilcox family have been farming on Ashtons Rd for 20 years after moving from Freemans Reach so they could have more space. They help feed Sydney from their 15 acres, they point out, and are not ready to retire.

The land has been a farm since the early 1800s.

The Wilcoxes were in the middle of renovations when they found out their house was set to be demolished for the Grose River Bridge route, but now they are living in what Mrs Wilcox describes as “a limbo land”.

The original plan for the Grose River Bridge saw it going down what is currently their driveway but then it was altered slightly to go smack bang through their house.

“They could put it [the new road] either side [of the property], there are vacant blocks each side, but they are choosing to put it through our house,” says Mrs Wilcox.

No-one will tell them, or the Post, who decided on this specific route, and why it cannot go across the edge of the 75-acres next door which is part of a horse stud – known by the engineers working on the bridge project as “the Starr property” named after the owners of that land.

The Wilcoxes put in a GIPA – a freedom of information request – to get hold of discussions about the route held in 2019, and in the material they received – from minutes of a meeting with staff from Redbank Communities, Hawkesbury Council, TfNSW, and engineering consultants WT Partnership – there are some curious lines. It says, “Road designed to avoid the Starr property, as per design brief”.

And, “A small deviation of Grose River Rd at intersection with Ashtons Rd to facilitate alignment with the new extension of Grose River Rd link which is to avoid the private land housing the horse stud”.

Marian and Peter Wilcox with just one of their veggie farm products

The Wilcoxes’ solicitor requested the project design brief over a week ago. They say neither Council nor the developer have provided it yet.

Community consultation on the project ends this coming week.

“I believe they are delaying on purpose,” says Mrs Wilcox, who says the family is being kept largely in the dark.

There is also open land the other side of the Wilcox’s house, though that would require a kink in the planned route, which comes down Grose River Rd and across Ashtons Rd before crossing the Grose River and linking up with Springwood Rd.

Part of the land next to the Wilcoxes – the Starr horse stud – does flood, not least because there is a creek which goes across it, but Mrs Wilcox says their property is no different as the same creek runs through their property too.

Not long after that initial public meeting, Peter Wilcox says the developers sent a drone over their property without permission and a day or so later a video was put up by Redbank on social media saying, this is where the new bridge route will go. They Wilcoxes say they had to push both the Council and Redbank to have the video taken down.

The family decided to fight to keep their home and have been trying to get help from Hawkesbury councillors – most of whom have not replied to the Wilcoxes at all, despite several letters and emails – as well as from Transport for NSW (TfNSW) and Hawkesbury Council, plus MP Robyn Preston who has visited them.

Artist’s impression of the Springwood Rd end of the proposed bridge route

They have also had discussions with independent councillor Mary Lyons-Buckett and Green’s councillor Danielle Wheeler, as well as Eddie Dogramaci of the Small Business Party, in addition to phone conversations with Liberal Mayor Patrick Connolly, each of whom has engaged with the family but Mrs Wilcox says with no positive outcomes.

Mrs Wilcox told the Post that when they asked Ms Preston why the developers could push the road through their property they were told, “because they are paying $23million”.

We asked Ms Preston who came up with the route and why and she told us to talk to Redbank Communities.

We asked TfNSW who had come up with the route and why it went through a family’s home and they told us the project was “a Hawkesbury Council one, so you should talk to them”.

We asked Hawkesbury Council the same questions and they have not replied.

Redbank Communities spokesperson told us, “in Redbank’s original DA, the bridge was proposed through Navua Reserve. A few years back a newly elected Council drove the change of location for the bridge, and in 2018 Hawkesbury City Council resolved to choose the Grose River Road Extension as their preferred option out of three options which was then announced in a public meeting”.

In a letter dated March 31 this year between Hawkesbury Council’s General Manager Elizabeth Richardson and Mrs Wilcox, the GM says alternate route options had been discussed with TfNSW.

It is a policy of TfNSW to try and avoid properties if they can, but given the government body says the project is “a Hawkesbury Council one,” there is a question over why Council cannot or will not deviate the route.

Artist’s impression of the proposed Grose River Bridge

Given Council has not replied to our questions, that unfortunately is an unanswered question.

“Redbank offered to draft some options to amend the alignment of the bridge with a view to reducing the impact on your property,” Ms Richardson told the Wilcoxes in her letter.

“They sent these options to Council and Transport for NSW in February 2022. We are waiting for comment from Transport for NSW to see if any of the options will meet engineering design specifications.”

But so far – four months later – the Wilcoxes say they have not seen any alternate routes and in an email to Ms Richardson on May 6 they said, “We are very disappointed and upset that we have not been given the courtesy of a reply or told what Transport’s feedback was to the new submission. Nor have we been told about what is now being proposed or shown a diagram of where it is proposed for the bridge to go. It appears Council’s tactic is to deliberately withhold information from us whilst pandering to the developers.

“It appears that again Council is showing no respect to us as the property owners but just expects us to find out at the same time as the general public. This is so appalling and just adding to our distress with this whole process.”

The next thing the Wilcoxes knew, on May 12 the Development Application for the bridge and route – in this case called a Part 5 – was being publicly announced, complete with artists’ impressions of the new bridge and connecting roads. We put together a story on that here.

The Grose River Bridge – which is sometimes referred to as the small bridge and is separate from the planned North Richmond Bridge Duplication – has been more than a decade in the making.

Designing, building and paying for the bridge was a condition agreed to by the developer – now called Redbank Communities – to allow the major Redbank estate to go ahead over 10 years ago. Without that agreement it is unlikely Hawkesbury Council would have allowed it to happen (Council were able to do DAs at that time and the development was passed on the casting vote of Liberal Mayor Bart Bassett who later became Londonderry MP).

The deal saw Redbank agreeing to pay whatever a bridge would cost, with a nominal sum of $23million being set aside by the developer.

The route leading across the Ashtons Rd junction at the end of Grose River Rd started to be looked at seriously by Council in 2018-19 and since 2019, the Roads and Maritime Services has apparently been in discussions with potentially affected landholders along this route but the Wilcoxes say that is simply not true in their case.

Back then, the RMS said a route following the Grose River Rd and across Ashtons Rd would likely see a bridge with a five tonne weight limit and school buses limited to a 60kph speed limit but at the meeting held with the Wilcoxes, they claim Redbank developer Mark Regent, said, “it’s built heavy duty and it’s not a toy bridge”.

The calculated cost for this option in 2019 was between $20 to $30m.

With the linked road changes, that could potentially rise to as much as $50m today.

“They want to get rid of us, “Mr Wilcox told the Post.

“We can’t farm the property anymore and while they say they want to discuss acquisition, they haven’t. We have had nothing in writing.

“Council says they can’t comment because it hasn’t been approved, so we are pretty much in limbo really.”

Mrs Wilcox said they “are basically stuck. We can’t maintain the house, that would just be a waste of time and money, and we have got no guarantee on the farming side of things, we can’t plan ahead”.

“We don’t know where our lives are heading and it’s very depressing.”

“That option to retire has been taken away from us, we can’t make a decision on our terms.”

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