Council set to move on Punchbowl

Bunbury’s former Punchbowl Caravan Park site is the first of several vacant lots Bunbury City Council is looking to move forward with in developing.
The council is calling on tenders for consultancy services for redevelopment of the underutilised beachfront site.
The Ocean Drive property has been one of three sites under a memorandum of understanding with LandCorp as the council figures out what the best use for the land is.
The other two sites are the council’s former depot land at Nuytsia Avenue and vacant land around Hands Oval.
City of Bunbury chief executive Mal Osborne said the council was moving on the Punchbowl site because it had become clear it would be the easiest to move on.
“As we’ve looked at the three sites, it became pretty obvious that the Punchbowl site was the easiest one to move forward with given there was still a lot of work to be done Nuytsia Avenue,” Mr Osborne said.
“And also there’s still a bit of uncertainty around how we might progress Halsey Street and the Hands Oval area.
“Punchbowl became the one we thought we could move forward.”

He said the tender process was seeking engineering services to de-constrain the site and ensure there were no flaws with views to develop the land.
“It’s just seeking consultancy services ... it will look at the geography, it will look at hydrology, it will look at connection to services, those general issues you need to be aware of before you can work out what the best use of the site is,” he said.
Mr Osborne said it was too early to know if the council was leaning towards marketing or keeping the block of land.
“It will have to go through the planning process, it will have to go through community engagement process,” he said.
While any decision is yet to be made, Mayor Gary Brennan previously said it was suitable for “something which takes full advantage of its location” and discussions around an aged person facility had taken place.
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