Community
6 June, 2026
Residents fear ‘cemetery town’ tag
Residents fear Douglas Park will become known as the ‘cemetery town’ if controversial plans for a memorial park near the Nepean River are approved by the State Government.
Residents fear Douglas Park will become known as the ‘cemetery town’ if controversial plans for a memorial park near the Nepean River are approved by the State Government.
Residents turned out in force for a drop-in session at the Douglas Park Community Hall on Wednesday to ensure their concerns are captured by Wollondilly Shire Council and included in council’s submission on the State Significant Development Application (SSDA).
Wollondilly Shire Council remains firmly opposed to the memorial park proposal – as does Member for Wollondilly, Judy Hannan.
Three councillors – Mayor Matt Gould, Paul Rogers and Suzy Brandstater – also attended in a show of support for Douglas Park residents.
Tracy McConchie has been leading the fight against the proposed Douglas Park Memorial Park and is spokesperson for the local action group.
Mrs McConchie believes the fight is going “as well as it can” but is still concerned the proposal will be given the green light.
“These things seem to steamroll,” she told The Southern Wire.
She said the memorial park was designed to cater for the Sydney Metropolitan area and fears Douglas Park will be used as “dumping ground” for something that Sydneysiders don’t want.
“We will be known as the cemetery town,” she said.
Mrs McConchie said the proposed site of the memorial park in Douglas Park Drive was simply unsuitable.
She said the surrounding road infrastructure wouldn’t cope and the proponents had paid “a lot of money” to downplay problems associated with the proposal.
She said residents were pleased with the support of council and Wollondilly MP Judy Hannan as well as Federal Member for Hume and Opposition Leader, Angus Taylor, who has also agreed to make representations on their behalf.
Mayor Matt Gould said the session had been “incredibly important” and would help council put its best case forward.
Staff will use the feedback from the session to finalise council’s submission before presenting it for formal approval at an extraordinary meeting of council on June 16.
Cr Gould said he had spoken with no-one in favour of the proposal and described the associated issues as “significant”.
He said it was frustrating that the matter was now in the hands of the State Government given that council was best placed to make a decision.
Cr Gould said there would be a need for more cemetery space in Wollondilly as the shire continued to grow but not of this size and not in an environmentally sensitive area.
“Our community deserves better,” he said.
Cr Gould said the SSDA had been an incredible drain on staff time.
He said Wollondilly had a very solid vision for its future growth and responding to the application had drawn resources away “from things that are more important to the community”.
Cr Paul Rogers said it was frustrating when decisions were taken out of the hands of council.
“No-one in the community wants it,” he said.
He said there would be no community benefit from the memorial park and residents were not even ‘sitting on the fence’ in relation to the proposal.
Everyone was “strongly opposed”.
“It’s just the wrong spot,” he said.
“It doesn’t make sense at all.”
Cr Rogers said he also recognised the need for more cemetery space in the Wollondilly in years to come – but in “more viable and less sensitive locations”.
He said cemeteries would be better located on the western interfaces of towns where they would help act as a buffer zone in the event of bushfire.
Cr Suzy Brandstater said there would be “no advantage, only disadvantage” to the community from the proposed memorial park.
She accused the proponents of pressing ahead “no matter how stupid it is”.
She said local businesses wouldn’t benefit because mourners would travel from the funeral to the wake and would then head straight home.
She said they wouldn’t be stopping on the way for a hamburger.
Cr Brandstater said there was a sense of disbelief in the local community.
She said many people were hoping that something could never happen but “it can”.
Cr Brandstater said the memorial park would turn Douglas Park into a “cemetery superhighway’’ with more people ‘living’ below the ground than above it.
She said its proximity to the Nepean River alone should rule it out.
Douglas Park resident Liz White said she had already made a submission objecting to the proposal.
She said she was not only concerned about traffic impacts and the ‘dire’ state of the road through the Gorge but about environmental impacts on the Nepean River as a result of leachate.
She said leachate could potentially contaminate water supply and could prove fatal to native species including fish, platypus and other animals.
Mrs White said she had moved to Douglas Park 13 years ago for the lifestyle and described it as a “lovely rural village”.
“It still has that rural atmosphere,” she said.
Danny Stewart, 66, said his family had moved to the Douglas Park region in 1866.
He said he ‘didn’t care’ if there was a need for a new cemetery or not – the proposed Douglas Park Memorial Park was simply in the wrong location.
He said the site would need to be excavated because of the sandstone and it would turn into a ‘well’ – with water following its natural course into the Nepean River in the event of heavy rainfall.
“There are no benefits at all in that location,” he said.
The road infrastructure would be unable to cope with the anticipated traffic influx whether it be “five, six or seven days a week”.
“It’s just not the right location.”
Mr Stewart is hoping a final decision won’t be made on paper by Sydney-based bureaucrats using Google Earth as their primary tool.
“You need to get out there,” he said.
“Staff need to physically take a look.”
Mr Stewart said he was “definitely” opposed to the current proposal but if there was a proposal for another cemetery on a site that was “logical and practical” – and with the “right” soil – he “might” be in favour of a different cemetery.
Just not this one and not on this site.
Another critic Sam Davis is pushing for a public hearing before the State Government makes a formal decision, adding that the Douglas Park community simply couldn’t afford to fight the process in court.
He said the community had been actively fighting for a change to Wollondilly’s LEP to ensure a cemetery/crematorium couldn’t be allowed in the proposed area and the amendment had been endorsed by council and the State Government’s planning department.
He said it would be difficult for the State Government to ignore the decisions of one its own departments.
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