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I'm one of your Hawkesbury City Councillors. For the last nine years I have sought to keep you informed about the local government issues that concern you .
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I'm known as the only one of your twelve Councillors who tries to be accountable to you in this way. I am a local schoolteacher by vocation, so I consider it one of my core responsibilities to engage you and keep you up-to-date.
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I hope you appreciate this newsletter, which covers an eventful 2025 in the Hawkesbury and in the nation. I only send these a few times a year. With the ending of print publication of the Hawkesbury Post, and some Councillors publicly celebrating this demise of good journalism, how else can your politicians be kept accountable?
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Councillor Nathan Zamprogno
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Feature article: Federal Election Analysis
Why did the Liberals Lose?
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I spent 33 years as a member of the Liberal Party, and was elected to Council as a Liberal in 2016 before becoming an independent. I want the Liberal Party to be better than it is, but it won't win elections or deserve to unless it takes a good hard look at itself.
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My analysis must have struck a chord because it's been viewed over 22,000 times and I'm getting a lot of feedback about it!
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I try to provide a Global, National and Local perspective (to the seat of Macquarie) of What Just Happened.
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The Effects on Insurance Premiums from Hawkesbury Flooding and Council's Planning Policies
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The skyrocketing costs of home insurance is a massive issue for people in the Hawkesbury.
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Damage from flooding could cost us billions, but the risks of living on a floodplain have driven up Insurance costs even when the sun is shining.
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I wish people had the good sense not to build or live in areas we now recognise are at high risk of floods. But there are about 5388 houses on the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain that sit below the level we currently mark as the redline for development, which is 17.3m (at Windsor), otherwise known as the “One in One-Hundred” level or the “1% AEP” level. These areas include some of the most historic areas of Windsor and Pitt Town.
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These people built before there was such a thing as flood height planning controls. I agree with having this standard and banning new residential building below that level. Recently Council considered raising those building height controls to an even higher level, the 0.5% AEP, better understood as the height a one in 200-year flood would reach.
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Even this week we have yet again endured the threat of flood-disaster.
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I encourage you to read my longer remarks or listen to the speech I gave in the chamber on this important issue.
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The North Richmond Bridge - The Incredible Shrinking Project
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In 2019 and 2021, to secure votes in what was at the time the most marginal Federal seat in the nation, the Liberals pledged $200M, and then $500M to build a new high, flood-resilient bridge across the Hawkesbury River.
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Then we discovered that the project was reduced in scope and would no longer bypass North Richmond, and would no longer loop around and relieve congestion at the intersection of Grose Vale Road, Bells Line and the Terrace.
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Worse, we found out that the money pledged wasn't enough.
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The plan now is to build the bridge, but dump the traffic back into the main street of North Richmond, and on to Southee Road at Hobartville without the key improvements and approach roads that ought to be regarded as integral to the whole project.
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It wasn't good enough, so in this video I represented the community’s frustration. I called on both the major Party’s Federal candidates, Labor's Susan Templeman and the Liberal's Mike Creed, to ensure their parties made a commitment to fully fund the whole project.
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Labor subsequently made exactly that pledge during the 2025 Federal Election campaign with a boost of an additional $116M. The Liberal party did not. This disappointing dynamic is a consequence of the fact that we no longer live in a 'marginal' seat -- at either state or federal level. This is what I discuss in my election analysis video above.
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I intend to keep Labor accountable for that pledge to ensure we get the best results for our community.
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Hawkesbury Council's delayed LEP is an embarassment
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LIke many of you, I am unhappy about Council's lack of progress towards our new LEP (Local Environment Plan), Council’s key planning policy.
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The LEP determines the kinds of development we permit, and where. It defines zonings, permitted uses and much more.
Our current LEP dates to 2012 and is no longer fit for purpose. Among the things I want to see in the new LEP, for example, are Detached Dual Occupancies and more generous definitions of Granny Flats / Secondary Dwellings, which I get a huge amount of correspondence about. This is something I have been advocating for for a long time.
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The way this has dragged on has become embarassing. The need for a new LEP was first flagged to Councillors in October 2018, when we were presented with the attached road map aspiring to complete the process by June 2021.
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Out and about in the wonderful Hawkesbury
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You should visit Windsor Mall to view the transformation now underway. Show your support and shop! Businesses are open! Don't avoid shopping in our main street. Most shopowners tell me there has been "some" dip in trade, and if anything are happier that the revamp is happening all at once instead of staged. Pedestrian access has been maintained on both sides. Read more...
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Recently St Matthews Anglican Church Windsor celebrated a very special 200th anniversary for the famous rectory and stables built next to the church. The Governor of New South Wales Her Excellency Margaret Beazley joined us and we were given accounts of its history by our own national treasures, Jan Barkley-Jack, Graham and Carol Edds of the Hawkesbury branch of the National Trust. Read more...
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Recently there have been two special open days at Scheyville National Park. Growing up nearby, I've had a life-long connection with the place. I'm grateful that Taskforce Veteran under the leadership of Brett Wild has done wonderful work in securing $9M of funding beginning the process of preserving and re-adapting the buildings. It was also a wonderful opportunity to witness a reunion of the OTU (the ADF's Officer Training Unit) Old Boys. Read more...
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