News · Planning · Barnsley and Teralba

The Macquarie Coal rezoning takes two areas out for housing: 450 square metre lots at Barnsley West, medium density by the stations at Teralba

The state planning department’s finalisation report for the Macquarie Coal Complex, first published in October 2026, takes Barnsley West and Teralba Southgate out of the post-mining industrial precinct and rezones both for housing under the Lake Macquarie LEP. Barnsley West, now conservation and rural land with 20 to 40 hectare minimum lots, becomes R2 Low Density Residential with an 8.5 metre height limit and a 450 square metre minimum lot. Teralba Southgate, now zoned for mining, becomes R3 Medium Density Residential with 10 metres and 900 square metres, and the department says the point of that zone is to let the state’s station-precinct apartment rules apply. None of this was in the version put out for comment in July.

The Hunter Ledger · 5 November 2026 · 5 primary sources, read 1 to 5 November 2026

Status, 5 November 2026: the department has finalised the proposal and recommends it be supported. We have not confirmed that the amendment to the Lake Macquarie LEP has been made and is in force: the NSW legislation website refused our requests. Until the amendment is made, the existing zones apply.

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The short answer. If you live in Barnsley, the former colliery parcels on the village’s edge, reached from Wakefield Road and Charlton Street, were proposed in July for small-scale industry. The final plan makes it a low density housing zone instead. If you live in Teralba, the old Southgate pit top between the Teralba and Booragul stations is being zoned so that it can take more than houses. The report gives no number of homes for either area. Its only residential figure is 22 hectares of residential land across the rezoning (report pages ii and 1).

What changes, control by control

The rest of the 1,142 hectare precinct goes to SP4 Enterprise, an employment zone that prohibits housing (pages 19 to 21). Our earlier stories cover that part: the jobs claims, the contamination record and the tailings dam that sets the timetable.

The department’s stated reason is brief. The approach, it says, aligns each sub-precinct with the adjoining land uses, applying development controls suited to its local residential character (page 20). The two areas are also taken out of the master plan and out of the state precinct chapter, so they will be governed by the council’s LEP like the streets around them.

Barnsley West: from light industry to house lots

In July the draft master plan described Barnsley West as separate parcels of land associated with the former Wakefield Colliery, reached from Wakefield Road and Charlton Street, and proposed a curated mix of small-scale urban services, light industrial and complementary employment uses (draft master plan, page 23). It also said that building on its previously undisturbed areas next to Barnsley homes was contingent upon assessment of transmission easements, servicing viability and biodiversity values (page 29).

Submissions pushed back on industry near homes. The report lists concerns about industrial uses altering the existing residential character of the area and about heavy vehicles in residential streets, and records that Charlton Street is no longer proposed as an access point to industrial land (pages 11 and 12). The final answer for Barnsley West is housing, on lots as small as 450 square metres where the current minimum is 20 to 40 hectares.

Two things the report does not say. It does not say how much of Barnsley West is the C2 conservation land and how much is rural, or whether any of the conservation land is kept out of the new zone; its only map is of the SP4 precinct. And it does not say whether anyone has checked the ground for houses. The exhibited contamination assessment looked at Barnsley West only as industrial land: part of it, Domain 14, has not been subject to intrusive investigations, and its conclusion was that potential contamination is unlikely to preclude commercial and industrial land use given the lower receptor sensitivity associated with this land use category (contamination assessment, page 19). Residential is a more sensitive use.

Teralba Southgate: the zone is a key to the station rules

Teralba Southgate takes in the former Teralba Colliery Southgate surface facilities (contamination assessment, page 7), where mining ceased in 2001 (report page 2). The draft master plan placed it approximately 300 metres from Booragul Station and 400 metres from Teralba Station, next to the Teralba local centre and the heritage-listed Teralba Conservation Area (page 24).

The 10 metre height and 900 square metre lot are the LEP figures, but the report says plainly what the R3 zone is for. It is intended to facilitate the application of Chapter 5 of the State Environmental Planning Policy (Housing) 2021, the Transport Oriented Development rules, and both Teralba and Booragul are TOD stations (page 20). The department’s TOD page says that in those areas Residential flat buildings are permitted in residential zones, with a maximum height of 22 metres for residential flat buildings, a floor space ratio of 2.5:1, a 21 metre minimum lot width and no minimum lot size, and 2 per cent of floor area as affordable housing in developments of at least 2,000 square metres. It lists the TOD controls as applied at both stations since May 2024. A mining zone is not a residential zone, which is why the rezoning matters.

So for whatever part of Teralba Southgate sits inside the mapped TOD area, the state rules allow residential flat buildings up to 22 metres, not only what the LEP’s 10 metres would. The report does not say how much of the land that is, and we have not checked the map.

Submissions raised Teralba directly: the closeness of new homes at Southgate to existing industrial uses next door, and a town lacking essential services such as doctors, a supermarket and a post office. The department’s response to the second was that suitable zoning already exists in the Teralba local centre to meet residents’ day-to-day needs (pages 12 and 14). Zoning allows a supermarket; it does not deliver one.

The ground at Southgate has been looked at more closely than Barnsley West, and is covered in our contamination story. In short, the July assessment set out a site investigation, remediation plan, validation and a recommended independent site audit before homes could be approved there, adding that this is particularly important at Teralba Southgate where detailed ground gas assessments have not been undertaken (contamination assessment, executive summary).

Our view

Housing beside housing is a more sensible neighbour for Barnsley than the light industry first proposed, and the department visibly moved in response to what residents said. But Barnsley West is the larger change and the thinner explanation: land currently zoned for conservation and 20 to 40 hectare rural lots, offered in July as an employment area with its biodiversity still to be assessed, comes out of the process as 450 square metre house lots, justified in one sentence, with a contamination assessment written for industry. Those questions can still be answered at the subdivision stage. They should be asked there.

What happens next

The report recommends the rezoning be supported and says the changes will be made through amendments to two state policies and the Lake Macquarie LEP under section 3.29(1) of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act (pages ii and 22). It does not give a date. We could not confirm on the NSW legislation register whether the LEP amendment has been made; we will update this page when we can.

Separately, on 20 October the government named the former mine at Teralba as its preferred site for a train factory. The finalisation report does not mention that decision.

Live in Barnsley or Teralba, or know whether the LEP amendment has been made? Tell us and we will check it against the department’s own documents and log the outcome here.