MEDIA RELEASE: FONOB Inc. finds no evidence for enclosure in Council’s own reports.

MEDIA RELEASE

Date: November 2025

FONOB Inc. finds no evidence for enclosure in Council’s own reports

Friends of Newcastle Ocean Baths Inc. (FONOB Inc.) has analysed seven technical reports obtained through a formal GIPA request, each prepared for the City of Newcastle between 2023 and 2024 and used to shape the Stage 2 redevelopment proposal for the heritage-listed Newcastle Ocean Baths.

The review found that enclosure of the open-air change rooms and expansion of commercial areas were treated as design assumptions from the outset — not as options tested with the community. Consultant reports repeatedly invoked child-safety and CPTED principles to justify enclosure, yet none provided site-specific evidence or independent expert advice to support those claims.

“Across all seven documents, there isn’t a single option that retains the main change areas entirely open to the sky,” President Peter Wickham said. “From the 2023 User Needs Analysis through the 2024 Concept Design, the so-called ‘open air’ option was still partly roofed — and the preferred concepts are fully enclosed. This shift occurred even though Council’s own 2025 consultation report recorded strong community support for keeping the change rooms open to the sky.”

“The supposed safety evidence simply doesn’t exist,” Peter Wickham said. “Council’s own GIPA-released documents show that the so-called CPTED analysis used regional crime data covering the whole Newcastle LGA — not the Baths. None of the maps identify a single incident at the site, and no CPTED or crime experts were engaged.”

“Likewise, every architectural drawing depicts enclosed buildings with large café footprints and no open-air alternatives. These aren’t neutral studies — they show that enclosure and commercial expansion were baked in from the start,” he said.

Heritage values were also marginalised. In the City’s own multi-criteria assessment, heritage was weighted at just 15 percent, while cost and operational factors dominated. “That’s an extraordinary imbalance for a site that’s now State-listed,” Peter Wickham said.

Early drawings show how commercial expansion was built in from the start. “Appendix B from 2023 already placed the café and community rooms on the pool frontage and put wet-area functions in a flood-prone zone,” he said. “Those layouts re-appeared almost unchanged in the 2024 concept designs.”

With the Stage 2 Development Application expected to be released this month, FONOB Inc. is calling for independent heritage, community, and safety reviews to ensure the design reflects both evidence and community values. “Regardless of what Council decides to do next, the community can see for itself that the process to date has lacked proper evidence and transparency,” President Peter Wickham said. “People will make their own judgments — and they will have their say knowing the documentation has been flawed from the start.”

Media contact:

Peter Wickham, President – Friends of Newcastle Ocean Baths Inc.