As a result of previous mine approvals Peabody Energy is now the largest landowner and housing property manager in the Wollar district. Most of the people from Wollar have been forced to leave the community and sell their homes and properties to the multinational mining company because of the impacts from the large opencut coal-mining operations: noise, dust and odour.

The NSW Government has supported this land acquisition policy as a way of managing the mining impacts. This has hollowed out the local population and left Peabody owning the housing stock in the Wollar Village and on surrounding properties at a time of regional and national housing crisis.

With little investment in basic housing maintenance, Peabody is pulling down houses in Wollar Village at a time when there is a critical shortage of housing in the Mudgee region. A responsible property owner would maintain housing for the local rental market. The vacant blocks in Wollar Village need new houses to ensure the long-term future of the community and to ease the current accommodation crisis.

Houses should be saved from demolition and renovated to help the desperate shortage of housing in the Wollar and Mudgee Region.