Planning panel signs off on 209-lot Catherine Hill project

A satellite image of Catherine Hill Bay showing Middle Camp at the northern end. Darren Nicholson's approved Middle Camp sites are Hamlets A and B. The earthworks are the Rose Group subdivision before the houses were built.

DEVELOPER Darren Nicholson has won planning panel approval for 209 housing lots at the Middle Camp or northern end of Catherine Hill Bay, and hopes to start work on the site by this time next year.

The approval caps a decades-long process that began when mining company Coal & Allied shut its underground mines in the 1990s, opening the way for the existing 600-home Rose Group subdivision south of the main township, and this smaller subdivision at Middle Camp.