By BELINDA PARKES
THE Seagulls Club at West Tweed is in financial jeopardy with a recorded operating loss for five of the seven years, and only just breaking even the other two.
Unless the club can find a way to increase revenue, its long-term viability is in doubt.
The club’s owners, North Sydney Leagues Club, had hoped incorporating an IGA supermarket into the premises would complement its offerings, which have already been expanded in recent years to include a child’s play centre, gymnasium and new-look restaurant.
However strong community backlash from existing shop owners in the area, and local residents, has encouraged Tweed Shire Council to follow the recommendation of its planning staff and unanimously refuse to allow the supermarket development to go ahead.
The news brought a united sigh of relief from members of the community and business operators at the Panorama Plaza shopping centre just a few hundred metres away.
An IGA supermarket already exists 1.4km away on Kennedy Drive.
Managers within the Panorama Plaza centre, which includes a bakery, butcher, hairdresser, bottle shop, takeaway shop, Thai restaurant and small supermarket, had feared for the viability of their own businesses if the IGA at Seagulls had been allowed to go ahead.
The club’s own application for the supermarket had acknowledged their development could reduce Panorama Plaza trade by more than seven per cent and those stores would need to sell their advantages in order to save themselves from a ‘significant impact on turnover’.
Janette McGreachin, who runs the Panorama Plaza Supermarket and Sub News store said she had been one of several concerned business owners and residents who had gone along to hear the council debate the issue but had come away with a ‘smile on our face’.
“Everyone was very concerned for our well-being,” she said.
John Mellifont, manager of the Local Liquor at Panorama bottleshop said there was already a lot of competition for business in the area and an IGA would undoubtedly have meant the death knell for some long-term businesses.
But while he was felt some reassurance at the unanimous verdict by the council, Mr Mellifont said he was not convinced the fight was over.
“I believe the people who own Seagulls spent a lot of money to put this up and I don’t know if they are just going to walk away,” he said.
“I feel a bit relieved but I don’t know it has been put to bed forever.”
Council staff had recommended the 1900sqm supermarketbe refused on seven key grounds, including its social and economic impacts, incompatibility with its recreation zoning and non-compliance with the council’s long-term retail strategy for the Tweed.
The club had argued that unless it was allowed to redevelop its site ‘there are serious doubts about the ongoing viability of the Seagulls Club’.
Councillor Michael Armstrong, who tabled a 2000-signature petition against the development proposal, said an IGA supermarket was not the most appropriate use of the land and did not have the support of the community it wanted to draw business from.
He did however acknowledge the club needed to find a way forward.
Seagulls has been an iconic institution in the Tweed Heads region since the 1960s and, until the late 1990s had the benefit of an adjoining sports field which has now been redeveloped with houses.
Councillor Katie Milne said it was inappropriate for children to be taken into an environment where gambling took place, even though the supermarket would be a separate entity to the club.
“Perhaps we can put our heads together to see if there are compatible industries that could go there because nobody wants to see Seagulls go down,” said Cr Milne.
“I’d like to support something else there if I can.”
