According to the Gulgong Community Action Group, the adjournment came on Friday because of contentions about The Mac’s storm water management plan in its development application for a $26 million, 400-bed mining village on Black Lead Lane. The Action Group said on Thursday that The Mac has been asked to resubmit the storm water management plan within two weeks for an amendment relating to a neighbouring property.

Last Monday Land and Environment Court Commissioner Susan Dixon visited the proposed site for The Mac Gulgong development.

She also witnessed about 100 residents protesting the development before hearing evidence at Gulgong RSL from several speakers. At the hearing last Monday, Mid-Western Regional Council’s Queens Counsel, Sandra Duggan, told the audience Commissioner Dixon had also been instructed to take a walk around the historic town of Gulgong.

Gulgong residents have argued permissibility of a 400-bed mining village on Black Lead Lane is a “finer point” considering potentially damaging social, economic and environmental impacts on the town.

The appeal came about after the Western Joint Regional Planning Panel rejected The Mac’s development application in October 2012. The Panel’s rejection was based around Mid-Western Regional Council successfully arguing temporary workers’ accommodation could be defined as “tourist and visitor accommodation” a prohibited use in the rural zoned site. The Mac has previously said it will be the purpose the accommodation serves, not the physical act of providing accommodation, which will give the development its character.