It’s been six months since Bellingen’s Courthouse closed down due to termite damage and enquiries to the NSW Attorney General’s Department have failed to establish when, or if, it will reopen.
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Local handyman Peter Opdenberg is concerned that the current arrangement, whereby people from Bellingen Shire have to travel to Coffs Harbour for court matters, will be permanent.
“My fear is they’re never going to open it up again because they’ve built this $73 million justice precinct in Coffs Harbour,” he said.
“Bellingen Shire is a low socioeconomic area, and if you live up at Deervale it’s a long trek to get to Coffs. And a lot of people don’t have the resources, they don’t have a car.
“It’s a community asset and we’re losing too many of them.”
Peter, who trained as an architect, started pursuing the matter back in April.
Frustrated by his dealings with the Department of Justice, who would only tell him that they had more than 80 buildings in a state of disrepair but not when Bellingen would be attended to, Peter approached the Member for Oxley, Melinda Pavey, who contacted Attorney General Mark Speakman on his behalf.
The eventual reply from the AG contained little new information, apart from what can be read between the lines.
“Bellingen Courthouse is affected by termite damage and will not sit again without significant repairs to the building being undertaken. Planning and funding for repair works will be considered alongside other infrastructure and investment priorities with the Department of Justice”, the letter said.
It went on to note that “Coffs Harbour, which has one of the largest courthouses in regional NSW, will absorb Bellingen’s very small caseload”.
The remaining half of the letter explained the “alternative service channels” available to the Bellingen community in accessing justice – online, by phone, and via the “more than 40 Justices of the Peace”.
Peter, who has been doing building maintenance work for 40 years, and a friend of his who is a licensed builder, have peered through the windows of Bellingen Courthouse and are not convinced that the repairs required are “significant”.
They say that the termite damage involves the untreated pine framing in the back section, which was added in the 1990s, rather than the historic main building that dates back to 1910.
“That untreated pine has to be replaced with white ant-proof material, otherwise they’ll keep coming back,” Peter said. “And they need to do something about the box gutter drainage, which seems to be where they started from.”
They estimate that the repairs could be completed in three to six months and would likely cost less than $100,000.
Peter has requested that Melinda Pavey’s office contact the Attorney General again to ask about a specific schedule for reopening the Courthouse.
He’d like people from Bellingen to mount a community campaign to make sure this happens, similar to the one that Macksville ran this year when its Courthouse was closed for several months on non-sitting days.
Melinda Pavey MP can be contacted on 6562 6190 or oxley@parliament.nsw.gov.au and Attorney General Mark Speakman can be contacted on 9339 5562 or via the form at https://www.nsw.gov.au/your-government/ministers/attorney-general/
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Janene Carey
Janene Carey is the senior journalist for the Bellingen Shire Courier-Sun
Janene Carey is the senior journalist for the Bellingen Shire Courier-Sun
