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Hawkesbury City Council received funding under the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants Program in July 2021 to deliver new mobile phone towers across bushfire‑impacted communities, aimed at strengthening communications in bushfire‑prone areas. The program, administered by the Australian Government following the 2019–20 Black Summer fires, funded towers at St Albans, Upper Macdonald, Central Macdonald, Berambing, and Bilpin. The towers at Upper Macdonald and Berambing are yet to be completed.
Hawkesbury City Council approved the Development Application for the Berambing mobile tower on 17 April 2025, eighteen days after the federal Black Summer grant expired on 30 March 2025 and after Council returned the funds, leaving the project with approval but no money to build it. The community only learned of this last week when informed by the agency contracted by Telstra to construct the tower.
The DA approval notes the project is conditional on funding from the specific Black Summer grant money, that is no longer available. This means that, while Council has finally granted permission to build the tower, it no longer has the funds to do so.
Community frustration
The Mt Tomah Berambing Community Association and the Bells Line of Road Business Council, which have championed the project for four years, say they are outraged that bureaucratic delays have cost the community a critical piece of emergency infrastructure.
“The Association strongly supported both the location and construction of the tower and was delighted when approval was finally given by Council. However, we were appalled to discover that the delay in so doing has resulted in the loss of the Federal funds allocated for its construction.
Whilst we reside in the Greater Sydney Area, mobile coverage is currently unreliable to non-existent. Consequently, communication for essential services and disasters e.g. bushfires, is often nigh on impossible.” said Peter Milne, public officer, Mt Tomah Berambing Community Association.
Essential service not provided
Hawkesbury’s mountainous north‑west fringe is one of the least connected regions in New South Wales. During the 2019–20 fires, residents in Berambing and Mt Tomah were cut off for days, unable to reach emergency services or receive warnings.
The Berambing tower was designed to fill that gap, providing mobile coverage along Bells Line of Road from Kurrajong Heights, covering black spots up to Mt Tomah, Mt Wilson, Mt Irvine and out to Mt Lagoon.
Council’s own planning report for the 9 April 2025 Local Planning Panel states the proposal “would … ensure sufficient mobile coverage during a potential natural disaster.” Yet, with Council returning the funds and no replacement funding identified, the project’s future remains unclear.
In contrast, Blue Mountains City Council has built a mobile tower at Mt Tomah on its side of the LGA boundary line; it assists phone coverage along Bells Line of Road towards Mt Victoria.
A call for accountability
Local business and community groups and residents say the four‑year delay underscores a lack of coordination between levels of government and Hawkesbury Council’s ability to deliver essential disaster infrastructure.
“The Black Summer grants were meant to make sure we were never without communications in an emergency again,” said Marg Tadrosse, President BLOR Business Council.
“Instead, we’ve ended up with red tape and missed deadlines and no essential communication tower.”
“Right now, there are black spots along BLOR Road we can’t even call 000. That is unacceptable.”
The Bells Line of Road Business Council says better mobile coverage is crucial for both disaster resilience and local economic recovery. The groups are calling on Council and Federal Member Susan Templeman to work together to restore the funding or secure replacement disaster‑resilience funds to deliver the project.
Why this communication tower is essential for disaster management
During similar weather conditions to those experienced last week in the Hawkesbury, on 15 December 2019 at 12:55 pm, at the height of the Black Summer bushfires the NSW Rural Fire Service Headquarters received a call from their strategic backburn operation fire ground at Mount Wilson.
Volunteer firefighters requested that an emergency warning be issued to alert nearby communities of the danger.
Their request for this warning to be issued was rejected by RFS Headquarters eight minutes later at 1:03pm.
By 4:13pm, when the NSW RFS finally issued an emergency warning message for this fire, the blaze had already destroyed homes, and properties across the region were engulfed in flames. The fire was so intense that all available Fire and Rescue NSW units across the Sydney Basin were deployed to the Hawkesbury in a last-ditch effort to stop the inferno from entering Western Sydney.
“We were all watching the RFS backburn because we knew it was a disaster waiting to happen,” said Berambing tourism operator Lionel Buckett.
“I was in my office, which looks up toward Mt Wilson, with some of my neighbours watching the smoke. I got a call on my landline from a Mt Wilson resident Mike Mclean saying the RFS backburn had escaped and would be on us in about 20 minutes. Pass the word on. We don’t have much mobile reception, so people had to drive around warning neighbours in person.”
As Buckett and his neighbours tried to spread the word, a New Zealand volunteer firefighter tasked by Hawkesbury Fire Control with letterboxing notices about the planned backburn arrived at Buckett’s office.
“We told him he was too late. The fire was already here, and he needed to take shelter. The RFS hadn’t contacted him probably because we had no mobile coverage.”
Berambing resident Anna Erasmus described how she and her partner and young teenage son suddenly found themselves trapped:
“We were confronted by a 70-metre fire front with no warning. The flames surrounded our home, and the house filled with smoke. It was terrifying. We had to fight for our lives and livelihoods for the next 48 hours. Not being warned and having no reliable way to communicate amplified the trauma.”
This is only three residents’ stories of many who found themselves trapped by fire that fateful December afternoon.
The lack of warning still haunts many in the community. Ironically, this communications tower was one of the few disaster‑mitigation measures Hawkesbury Council had committed to, after previously rejecting support for roadside water tanks and neighbourhood safer places—it was one of the only proactive steps ever taken to protect residents in the area.
Ms. Anna Erasmus speaking at a public meeting 15 September 2022 about her experience surviving the Mt Wilson RFS backburn fire without any communication.
“Council is a disgrace; the NSW government Premier Minns should install an administrator who can deliver essential disaster services that every community surrounding Hawkesbury has.” says Ms Erasmus.
This YouTube clip serves to remind readers of what residents of Berambing and Mt Tomah were confronted with.
A Hawkesbury Council spokesperson commented that Council is working closely with the National Emergency Management Agency to secure [restore] funding for the project.
The Hawkesbury Gazette has requested comment from the office of Susan Templeman MP on efforts to reinstate funding for the Berambing and Upper Macdonald towers. Further reporting on calls for a NSW Parliamentary inquiry into Hawkesbury disaster readiness will appear in our October print edition.
