More than 50 young mothers and their babies turned up at the Women’s Rest Centre in Cronulla Mall this morning to find the doors had been closed.
The Women’s Rest Centre in Cronulla Mall will be demolished and replaced by a temporary children’s playground, under a resolution adopted by Sutherland Shire Council.
The resolution was added to the draft Cronulla Town Centre Public Domain Master Plan adopted for public exhibition by the council last Monday night.
A council spokesperson said that technically, the plan for the Women’s Rest Centre is not part of the master plan, just a point of the resolution adopted by the council.
While the draft Cronulla Public Domain Masterplan will be on public exhibition from 1 August for a period of 28 days, for comment, the council moved swiftly to shut the centre.
“We turned up this morning after a successful weekend of thousands of people supporting our petition on change.org to keep the centre open and which now has 1500 online supporters,” resident Annette Hogan said.
“There were about 50 people who turned up trying to get in the door,” she said.
“There were women crying that they could possibly do this after all this time without any consultation. The council wants mothers to use the parents room at Cronulla Central. Their prams can’t fit into the library. One young mother had to change her baby’s nappy on the ground outside the centre.
“The master plan was developed over 12 months and I and many others had input into it with overwhelming support to retain the Women’s Rest Centre,” Ms Hogan said.
“The Women’s Rest Centre was recommended to remain in its place by the Consultants and it was shown as such on the draft Master Plan, it was supported by Council staff.
“It was the Councillors at the Infrastructure Committee meeting held on July 3 decided to demolish the Centre.
“They cannot have it both ways. If the Report was based on extensive community consultation, then they, the Councillors, and they alone removed it from the plan against the community feedback.
“The council had the future of the Women’s Rest Centre in the master plan for consultation and those councillors have bloody-mindedly ripped it out without any further consultation when it was clear that the community wanted to retain this facility.
“Without anybody knowing they have just closed it. Everybody is disgusted. They all want to know when the next council election is.
“We call the councillors to have some guts and take it back to the community. Put in a rescission motion and put it out on exhibition and not just shut it down without any further consultation. It is not over yet.”
Council comment to come.
