$116,000 offer for land at entrance to Bega Sportsground in Aboriginal land claim

The money will be paid to Bega Local Aboriginal Land Council as compensation for dispossession of claimable Crown land.

The payment will allow council to move ahead with the development and upgrade of the Bega Sportsground, which will cost more than $10m and for which a master plan was adopted in April 2016.

The parcel of land in question sits at the entrance to the sportsground on Carp Street.

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There had been a much larger area of land under consideration, but the claim was withdrawn as it was a gazetted reserve for the purpose of athletic sports; public recreation, and therefore lawfully used and occupied for local government purposes, council CEO Anthony McMahon said.

The same could not be said of the smaller parcel of land, which will cost council $116,000 for the claim by Bega Local Aboriginal Lands Council to be relinquished, and the upgrade to move ahead.

In the case of this smaller parcel of land (reserve 32165) the gazetted reserve purpose is public pound, and council had undertaken works on the land (construction of a skatepark and sewer pump station to service the sportsground development) that did not comply with the dedicated reserve purpose of public pound, making it claimable Crown land, Mr McMahon said.

Cr Mitchell Nadin said he was "livid" about the situation.

"I have a moral and ethical problem paying this. The benefit to the whole community would be to give the land to the community, for the entire benefit of the community, the kids who play there, the spectators," Cr Nadin said.

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"We are so poor at this council, we've had to cut all our funding to the Mumbulla Foundation, $25,000 a year. I am livid at this."

But Mr McMahon said the Bega Local Aboriginal Land Council could not donate the land as it was still the matter of a claim. The only other alternative was for the Land Council to withdraw the claim.

Councillors resolved to offer the compensation, capped at $116,000, with Cr Nadin voting against and Cr Robin absent.

The offer has yet to be discussed by the Bega Local Aboriginal Land Council and so the matter is not finalised.

The Bega Sportsground development is under assessment at the Southern Regional Planning Panel waiting for land claims to be resolved.

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