Business
12 December, 2025
Wingecarribee still lagging with development applications
The latest data from the NSW Department of Planning shows there has been little improvement in Wingecarribee Shire Council’s development application processing times.
The latest data from the NSW Department of Planning shows there has been little improvement in Wingecarribee Shire Council’s development application processing times.
The latest data (up to November 30) shows that only 50 per cent of DAs this financial year have been assessed within the expected timeframe of 105 days.
Council’s average assessment time is currently sitting at 202 days – almost double the Minister’s expectation and the slowest in the state.
This is only a slight improvement on the 214 days at the end of October and the 210 days at the end of September.
State-wide, 72 per cent of applications are being assessed within the expected timeframe and 70 per cent of councils are meeting the Minister’s expectations.
Staff acknowledge that council is failing to meet the Minister’s expectations but is “making progress on the issue”.
As already reported by The Southern Wire, the majority of councillors believe council is doing everything it can to improve DA processing times and rejected calls at its October meeting to revise its existing action plan and to take a more aggressive approach.
Instead, it set a new goal to exceed the NSW average of DAs being determined within the Minister’s expected timeframe by September 2026.
That means there will need to be a significant improvement in DA processing times over the next nine months or council will fail to meet a second goal.
At the beginning of its term council set a goal of assessing 62 per cent of DAs within the expected timeframe within its first year but at the end of July 2025 only 49 per cent of DAs were being assessed within expectations.
Mayor Jesse Fitpatrick and senior staff have consistently blamed the delays on a massive backlog of DAs.
Cr Fitzpatrick has said DA processing times will decrease “dramatically’ once the backlog has been addressed.
He said at council’s October meeting that planning staff had already done an “astonishing” amount of work.
While council has decided to stick with its current action plan, the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure may soon instruct it to do more.
The Department has appointed an expert planner to undertake a review of council’s processes to help it reduce DA assessment times and is currently reviewing the expert planner’s recommendations.
A spokesperson for the Department has told The Southern Wire that council would be expected to implement any actions arising out of the recommendations to help bring down DA assessment times and to meet the Environmental Planning Assessment (Statement of Expectations Order) 2024.
Under the Order – which came into effect on July 1, 2024 – councils are expected to determine development applications within 105 days for the 2025-26 financial year.
The timeframe will be reduced to 95 days in 2026-27 and to 85 days from lodgement from July 1, 2027 onwards.
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