News
29 April, 2026
Minister openly criticises council leadership
NSW Minister for Planning Paul Scully has openly criticised Wingecarribee Shire Council’s lack of leadership on DA processing times.
NSW Minister for Planning Paul Scully has openly criticised Wingecarribee Shire Council’s lack of leadership on DA processing times.
Speaking to Graeme Day on Radio 2ST earlier today (Wednesday), Mr Scully said his own personal frustration with council must “pale into insignificance” with the frustration felt by homeowners, potential homeowners, renters and tradespeople.
He said council’s DA processing times were creating “real world problems that can’t be ignored”.
“There are really hard questions the community should be asking of their (council’s) leadership,” Mr Scully said.
As reported repeatedly by The Southern Wire, Wingecarribee Shire Council has consistently been the worst performer in the state when it comes to DA processing times.
Mr Scully said the NSW Government’s monthly league table – which shows the performance of councils across the state – indicated there was a problem in the Wingecarribee.
He said when councils were consistently amongst the worst performers in the state “you can’t pretend that there’s not an issue that has to be dealt with here”.
“I’m not sure exactly what the problem is,” Mr Scully said.
“There’s a multiplicity of problems I think.
“What we have done is appoint an expert planner to go in and come up with improvements to processes to try and improve those (DA processing) numbers.”
“They (Wingecarribee Shire Council) still have a long way to go.”
As reported by The Southern Wire earlier this month, Wingecarribee had the slowest average assessment time in the state with 189 days.
Wingecarribee assessed just 57 per cent of development applications within the expected timeframe set by the Minister of 105 days – compared to the state average of 71 per cent.
The majority of councillors believe council is doing everything in its power to improve DA processing times and have commended staff on their efforts.
They rejected calls at the October 2025 meeting to revise council’s existing action plan and to take a more aggressive approach – instead setting a revised goal to exceed the NSW average of DAs being determined within the Minister’s expected timeframe by September 2026.
Mr Scully was candid in his criticism.
He said council’s leadership needed to acknowledge that “we need homes in the area, we need jobs in the area, we need to make sure we’re providing good communities and we can do that but we need to it at pace”.
Mr Scully was asked whether council was trying to manipulate figures by sending DAs back to applicants and ‘pulling them out of the system’.
He said council should be putting its time, effort and energy into working on process improvements “to get things moving” rather than “working around the system”.
“The ultimate outcome is to get people into homes, into jobs (and) improve the environment at a time when we know there are extreme housing pressures,” he said.
“If you can’t look at and are not willing to go the extra mile to make sure that you are improving things to get things moving at a time when people need you to do that then there’s really hard questions the community should be asking of their leadership,” he said.
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