Tweed needs alternatives

The Wollumbin Summit walk and the Tweed Art gallery are the two most significant individual tourism attractions in the Tweed Shire accounting for 23% of total tourism visitation in the Tweed region, each recording over 100,000 visitations per venue each year.  Wollumbin access has been closed twice for lengthy periods due to natural disasters in 2017 and 2012 causing significant loss to local tourism income and now since 2020.

The Wollumbin Summit Track has been closed three times in the past 7 years in 2012 and 2017 by cyclone and floods and now in 2020. On all occasions this amounted to a loss to the local economy of an estimated $280,000 week. In 2012 this accounted for a 6 month loss of tourism regional income of an estimated 7.25 million dollars.

The 2017 closure of the Tweed Valley entrance at Barkers Vale (Kyogle Shire) to the Border Ranges National park left only two accessible National parks in the Tweed Valley region. This closure places additional pressure on the limited Mebbin National Park infrastructure and Wollumbin Walks for people looking for an accessible nature- based experience.

Additionally, this affects a lot of the through traffic heading to Kyogle making it less attractive to stop and stay in the Tweed Valley with drivers preferring to stop and refuel and resupply in Kyogle.

The current facilities at the base of Wollumbin are at their capacity, servicing over 120,000 people per annum with no room for further expansion of car parking or support facilities at the base of the climb. The Wollumbin summit track has not been advertised or promoted on the National Parks’ web sites since 2015 in an attempt to reduce the popularity of the summit walk.

This is in contrast to the Department of Environment state plan to increase National park visitation by 20% by 2016. This initiative has been readopted by Department of Environment through to 2026. To achieve this at a local level, NPWS need to create alternatives in the Tweed region Parks.

The economic reliance on Wollumbin Summit walk to the region is high, with visitation accounting for approximately 9% of total tourism visitation. This would account for 5.76 million dollars from overnight visitation and 9.03 million dollars from day visitors. This gives a per annum economic return by Mt Wollumbin Summit walk to the community of over 14.5 million dollars per annum. There is only one other walking destination in the Tweed Region.

There are currently 24 Land areas under either National Parks, Nature Reserve or Conservation area in the Tweed Shire. The total land area is 22,288 ha (222.88 km²). This represents 14% of the Tweed Shire’s total area. It also represents approximately 96% of accessible public bush space in the Tweed Shire region. Additionally, 4248 hectares (42.48km²) of the land under National Parks’ control is classified Nature Reserve and is therefore unavailable for recreational purposes, thus placing greater importance on access to the remaining portion.

Currently there are two accessible park locations from within the Tweed Shire that provide public amenity to these areas, providing a total of 1 campsite, 3 toilet facilities and 3 nature walks.

There are few council or state forest accessible alternatives to provide open space walking experiences, and none with the available connection to a nearby township by safe walking or cycling access. The nearest State Forest holding is adjoining Mebbin National Park on Byrill Creek road.  The largest available council bush lands are Mt Nullum and Byrill Creek. Unfortunately, there is no Mt Nullum public access due to road reserve resumptions and Byrill Creek is currently a dam reserve.

Lack of natural destination opportunities for nature- based visitations can also be seen in the “Northern Rivers Great Walks” which lists 30 of the best walks in the Northern Rivers Region including the Tweed Shire. Despite the wealth of natural heritage and National Parks, the Tweed Shire only has 2 of the 30 great walks listed. Both these walks are in the same location of Mt Wollumbin National Park

Visitation numbers for the region’s parks including Border Ranges (Kyogle), Minyon Falls (Byron Bay) and Mt Warning (Tweed Shire) were estimated at 250,000 as at 2004 (NPWS, POM Mt Warning, 2004) This places Mt Warning as representing 68% of total park visitation in the Northern Rivers regional National Parks’ area.

There is increasing pressure on the location of the two great Northern Rivers walks as Mt Wollumbin National Park is at capacity with an inability to expand car parking infrastructure at Breakfast Creek and cultural pressure surrounding the summit.

This signifies a major loss of nature tourism destination opportunity for the region. The most important reason for overnight visitors to the Tweed region is for a nature- based holiday, for both day and overnight travellers, the significant majority of whom travel by car.  The region currently only provides one such activity, Wollumbin.