Centennial Coal plans to reopen the Angus Place Colliery, that has been mothballed since 2015. The mine is located in the upper Coxs River valley 20 minutes north of Lithgow. In August 2021 Centennial submitted a Scoping Report to the Planning Department for its Angus Place West proposal. The company plans to extract up to 8.5 millions tonnes of coal at a rate of up to 2 million tonnes a year till 2040.

The reserve’s plan of management must be amended as it currently drives commercial tourism growth, instead of conservation and presentation of the heritage values that ensures quality sustainable tourism. The current plan still allows for adventure tourism facilities to straddle the middle of the Lost City view, wrecking Lithgow’s best scenic asset and illustrates perfectly what’s wrong with the management plan.

Road access to the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area has now been largely reconstructed from a previously ruinous state. 

You can visit the reserve by car, but its easy to get into trouble on the reserve’s myriad of access roads. The visitor facilities for this new reserve are a work in progress, with only Lost City North carpark and Lost City Walk completed. 

The Gardens of Stone area is more than just an iconic pagoda-studded landscape, it encompasses forested montane sand dunes, high altitude peat swamps, slot canyons, caverns, slot canyons, waterfalls, gorges and arches. It supports 1000 plant species, 33 vegetation communities, 319 vertebrate animal species, 42 threatened animals and 42 threatened plants.

The Gardens of Stone Alliance are a collection of conservation groups who developed the reserve proposal and Destination Pagoda - its people in nature vision . Become a supporter, please fill in the webform 
 

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