NSW Planning requires Councils to review their LEPs every 5 years but the last LEP approved by the Council was in 2012. The 2015 Housekeeping LEP has not been presented to Council for ratification. Hawkesbury missed both its 2017 and 2022 LEP reviews. No information is available on the status of when any document will be presented to Council.

“Businesses can’t plan to expand – all the industrial parks in the LGA are full. We have North West Sydney development with The Hills, Blacktown and Penrith Council going great guns with their planning and expansion – the are so easy to do business with. Hawkesbury is a planning basket case and dead to business growth and opportunities.” – a business wanting to expand in the Hawkesbury LGA

Business groups have lobbied for Hawkesbury to do its 2015 LEP Housekeeping with some small success:

“We finally got Councillors to vote against the Administration and approve the inclusion of Eco-tourism which was part of the Housekeeping LEP. It took over a year and a lot of effort after we had been burnt out by the Black Summer bushfires. It’s ridiculous that eco-tourism was in every Council LEP except Hawkesbury.”

You can do it everywhere but the Hawkesbury

You can establish a function centre or build a detached second dwelling on your property, things that are particularly beneficial to isolated semi-rural communities, if you live in any of the Local Government Areas surrounding Hawkesbury.

These are just two of many items in the 2015 Housekeeping LEP addressed as being permissible but which have not been presented by the Administration to Council for ratification.