NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner said an agreement to acquire most of Nowra Park to enable the future creation of a health precinct would future-proof Shoalhaven Hospital’s campus for potential expansion and secure the area around it for the development of health infrastructure.

The Medicare Local facility will be built in the area on Scenic Drive between the hospital and the cancer care clinic, while a GP super clinic and medical training centre is proposed for the area adjacent to the helipad and down to Shoalhaven Street.

But Councillor McCrudden has called it a “blatant land grab”.

Cr McCrudden posted the following comment on a story on the South Coast Register website: “The hospital can be built anywhere. There is space next to the Uni and would work with it.

“But this health line is only a smokescreen. The land is being taken for parking. Gettit? Parking. A historic park is being asphalted over because the State wants to, and the Council, never bright at the best of times, can’t see through the land grab.”

When contacted about his comments Cr McCrudden didn’t back down.

“It’s just council being council,” he said.

“Council is the trustee of that land what a bunch of wankers to be trustees, not the present council but the previous councillors that allowed it to happen.

“I just see it as a land grab and council has continued to let land go.

“It is a historic park. [Local resident] Bill Hancock has researched its history and the area has so much meaning.

“Not only is it the oldest proclaimed park in the state but it has significant meaning to the local Aboriginal people.

“The top end of the park was a birthing place for Aboriginal women, while the huge tree at the bottom of the park is now in danger as all the smaller trees that have been knocked down to make way for the cancer centre were a buffer area for the winds that hit the area.

“And some of the trees had markings where bark canoes were cut out of them.

“There is just a whole heap of history with that block.

“If I had been on council I wouldn’t have given it away.

“I believe they will only turn it into a car park.

“Originally they ripped a bit of land off for the child care centre, then the helicopter pad, then the original car park was extended and then the cancer centre - this latest land grab will only be used for car parking.

“The state government doesn’t give a damn; they have run out of money.

“It’s cheaper just to take more land alongside than building a five-storey car park, which is what is needed.

“Car parking should be going up, not out.”

Cr McCrudden said the $35 million Shoalhaven Regional Cancer Centre should have been located next to the Wollongong University campus at West Nowra.

“The land out there would be perfect for that and a teaching hospital,” he said.

“I believe they are even looking at another method of treatment apart from nuclear radiation, so where does that leave this facility?

“At least if it was at the uni they could also do experiments and tests.”

Asked if he thought the West Nowra campus was too remote and lacked infrastructure such as transport Cr McCrudden said no.

“People in Culburra, Callala, Berry, Ulladulla they all get breast cancer and the like, a few extra hundred yards out to the uni isn’t going to make any difference,” he said.

“It is a far better environment for it.”