Edgar Adams' Editorial

That was the headline on the first edition of Central Coast Business Review in June 1990. That was nineteen years ago and we saw it then.

Erina is one area in the Gosford LGA that Gosford Council hasn’t been able to hold back too much. This month in our Property Section we report on tenancy moves at Fountain Plaza. Woolworths are investing something like $1.5 million in a Dan Murphy’s liquor store at Fountain Plaza which will employ about fifty people. The nab and ANZ banks are expanding, as is Erina Diagnostic Imaging.

Web hosting company, Ultraserve, which occupied a corporate office in the Platinum building has outgrown their premises and have moved into much larger space in the same building (we will be reporting on Ultraserve in detail next month).
Compass Housing has set up on the Central Coast and taken office space at Erina Plaza and in the same complex where The Nutrition Centre is also opening. And we know there are other development projects in the pipeline. So Erina continues to boom and we will report in more detail next month on its growth.

While this is all very good news amid talk of recession, and we know some businesses have been hit hard, one has to ask, why has Erina moved ahead and Gosford CBD has remained in the doldrums over the past twenty years? Apart from Councillors past and present who should hold their head in shame for Gosford’s predicament, we can only hope and trust that Gosford can emerge as the Capital of the Central Coast.

Having said that, one has to look seriously at Gosford’s business leaders and property owners who have pussy-footed around Council allowing it to get away with a do-nothing, myopic view of the world. These days nearly all Councillors everywhere are politicians, petty ones at that, with no other interest than to look after their own petty interests. Taking a mamby pamby approach has not worked.It’s time for a new approach.

What Gosford needs is a small group of people, with vision and drive and the funds, who are prepared to stand up for the future of Gosford. People with a genuine interest in the community in which they live and do business. With The Gosford Challenge being the last throw of the dice we certainly need to support that initiative. But in the end it may not happen if we just sit back and watch.

Our cover story is about a Central Coast company that builds high performance racing yachts. Boatspeed started on the Central Coast twenty or so years ago and remains a locally owned company that is exporting high-tech ocean racing machines to the world. They are a company the Coast can be very proud of.

For some reason the Coast has managed to maintain a boat building industry which goes back 150 years. It started in Kincumber Creek, which was a deep water creek but in recent years has silted up. The Greenies will tell you that it was always a swamp and should remain that way – they are lying!

In the early 1990s and up until 2003, Dave Warren was building multi-million dollar luxury motor yachts at Kincumber and keeping a lot of very skilled craftsmen and tradesmen in a job. That turned sour when Kincumber Creek became so silted up resulting in Warren Yachts moving to Brisbane. Had Gosford Council had dredged the creek, Warren Yachts would still be here. Council allowed residential development in Kincumber that caused the siltation but always denied they were involved and refused to dredge the creek.

It’s the same story with the entrance to Brisbane Water. Council wants to close its eyes to a problem that can only get worse. There are a lot of people whose livelihoods depend on Brisbane Water.

Edgar Adams
Editor

Back Send us your comments