News
20 October, 2026
Proposal should not be considered on its own
Local residents say the proposal for a 16MW gas-fired power plant servicing the Southern Highlands Data Centre in Douglas Road should not be considered on its own but as part of a much larger development with potentially devastating impacts on the Southern Highlands.
Local residents say the proposal for a 16MW gas-fired power plant servicing the Southern Highlands Data Centre in Douglas Road should not be considered on its own but as part of a much larger development with potentially devastating impacts on the Southern Highlands.
The Nakar Property Pt Ltd proposal is currently before the Land and Environment Court with an on-site meeting held on Tuesday morning before Commissioner Nicola Targett.
The hearing (Darkar Property Pty Ltd v Wingecarribee Shire Council) has been listed for three days.
A 14MW gas plant (SQE1) has already been approved on the site and, The Southern Wire understands, is currently under construction.
The 16MW plant (SQE1) is before the Land and Environment Court, while a third application for a much larger plant 673.3MW plant (SQE3-SQE21) is currently with the State Government as a State Significant Development (SSD).
The combined capacity of the three gas plants would make it one of the largest in Australia.
The Southern Wire has been told it will also be the first gas-fired data centre in the country.
First Nations representative Dane Shanahan from the Gundungara people told Commissioner Targett that each ‘piece’ of the project was being considered on its own and “no-one is looking at the whole”.
When the project was split into pieces he said the cumulative impacts “disappeared”.
He said there had been no consultation with the Aboriginal community to date – despite the fact the project would have “real and measurable harm” on his people.
He said the proponent had deliberately decided not to engage with the Aboriginal community and argued that notification was not consultation.
He said the Gundungara people had a continuing relationship with Country and shouldn’t be notified after decisions had already been made.
Mr Shanahan raised particular concern over plans to alter the course of a creek on the property.
He said it would cut off 15 metres of a living waterway and “re-shape an ancestral pathway”.
Resident Gabby Kent also told the Commissioner that the current DA needed to be placed in context.
She said the planning process had made all three gas plants separate, and there had been no assessment of the cumulative impacts which were “significant and serious”.
Mrs Kent said the stacks would be 23.5 metres high and it would take years for trees to grow tall enough to mitigate any impact.
She said those stacks – more than 100 of them in total – would “discharge and disperse” pollutants across the region.
Mrs Kent described the scale of the project as “totally mindboggling”.
She said the increase in the number of new data centres and the expansion of new centres was being driven by AI.
“I understand business needs change, but their reality shouldn’t become our planning reality,” she said.
Mrs Kent said the community shouldn’t have to accept “one development after another” only to face the cumulative impact further down the track.
Moss Vale resident Ingrid Skirka said plans for three gas plants on the site would impact a “crucial regional catchment”.
She said water from Moss Vale and the Southern Highlands flowed into Warragamba Dam and provided 80 per cent of Sydney’s drinking water.
She said that water supply was at risk of pollution from gas plant emissions.
Ms Skirka said the threat was also “beneath our feet”, with a major aquifer identified as the primary recharge zone for Sydney’s water in the event of drought located directly below Moss Vale.
She said toxic contaminants could leach into the aquifer, and remediation would be “practically impossible”.
Ms Skirka said the project had been “artificially fragmented” to avoid the assessment of cumulative impacts.
“This facility does not belong in this landscape.”
She said there would be ‘zero’ benefit to the community and described the project as “commercial convenience masquerading as innovation”.
Moss Vale resident and medical professional Dr Jacqueline Duc said the 16MW application could not be viewed in isolation.
She described it as an “operational stepping zone” to a much larger development with no masterplan.
She said the project posed a significant risk to health through “chronic air pollution” and the environment.
It would “seriously jeopardise” Sydney’s water supply and lacked any social licence.
Ros Murphy – who owns a farm neighbouring the data centre with husband Paul – is concerned about potential pollution of her own water supply as well as the Wingecarribee River.
She said there was also a potential contamination risk to soil, hay and silage.
“What happens if this gets into the food chain?” she asked. “That’s a real possibility.”
She said noise and lighting from the facility would impact nearby residents as well as native fauna including microbats, kangaroos, wallabies and platypuses.
Burradoo resident Will McCarthy described the project as “development by stealth” and said an industrial zoning wasn’t a blank check to build anything.
“This development is simply in the wrong place,” Mr McCarthy said.
He said it would consume the landscape “one step at a time” and at some stage planning authorities needed to be capable of stepping in and saying ‘enough’.
Mr McCarthy said the project lacked any community support.
“There is such a thing as corporate responsibility and morality. “Sometimes that means walking away.”
Another resident who spoke at today’s hearing described the report on the visual impact of the project as offensive and immoral and said it amounted to “manipulative psychology”.
She accused the proponent of “running to the finish line before the laws catch up’.
Heather Champion from Stop the Gas Plant – Southern Highlands said the fight against the gas plant would continue and opponents would “put a stick in the spokes every step along the way”.
She thanked those people who turned out on Tuesday to help protect the Southern Highlands “from industrialisation and inappropriate development”.
The proceedings will continue on Wednesday, October 21 at the Land and Environment Court in Macquarie Street, Sydney from 10am.
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