Update 6pm:
Following a successful afternoon of negotiations, 14 of the 17 properties have now sold. Among those sold were the two remaining large farms, “Glenroy” and “Avondale”.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
across the nation
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Earlier:
HANDS were slow to show at today’s auction of 17 farms at Cobbora formerly earmarked for coal mining.
This morning punters and rubberneckers packed into the Dunedoo Golf Club to see the first of many auctions selling off the 43,500 hectares of farmland owned by the NSW Government’s Cobbora Holding Company.
Three large holdings and 14 lifestyle properties went under the hammer this morning but only nine sold. The rest were passed in.
CBRE agribusiness director Col Medway and Milling Stuart agent Angus Stuart led the action while Chapman Eastway agribusiness advisor Gabriel Passmore noted the bids.
Mr Medway said he didn’t expect all the properties would sell today.
“We put up a suite of properties to see what the appetite was like and today’s result will help us work out how we go forward with the sale process next year,” Mr Medway said.
“We always thought the market would pick the eyes out of what we had up and that’s what’s happened here today.”
The smallest of the three aggregated blocks sold. The Parkins family picked up the 335ha block “Tallawang” for $1.34 million. “Avondale”, an amalgamation of six blocks totaling 3,246ha was passed in, so too was the 2,438ha block “Glenroy”.
Dunedoo farmer David Parkins, who purchased the “Tallawang” with his parents Robbie and Maria and brother Michael, was thrilled with the purchase.
“We’ve been leasing “Tallawang” so this means we can keep our cattle and cropping operation there going. Our other place is just down the road so this property will give us extra scale,” he said.
The two biggest lifestyle blocks up for grabs fetched prices well above the reserve. “Marawaka” sold for $490, 000 and “Appleby” sold for $425, 000. In general, bids were slow to come in and six lifestyle blocks failed to make the reserve.
Mr Medway said his team would continue negotiations with registered bidders right up until Christmas.
Cobbora Holding Company bought up great swathes of land (including 35 productive farms) in 2009 and 2010 under the former Labor government’s plan to establish an open-cut thermal coal mine to supply the state-owned Vales Point power station at Lake Macquarie.
The acquisition of land for the mine saw more than 90 families leave the Dunedoo area, hurting local schools and businesses.
In November the government sold Vales Point for $1m. Now, all the farmland, some of which had been leased back to farmers, must go. Today’s auction was the first of many.
