Plans to build an adventure park with the country's longest zip-line in a protected area of the NSW Blue Mountains have been scrapped after community opposition.
The previous NSW Coalition government wanted to see the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area (SCA) become home to the Lost City Adventure Precinct.
It was hailed as the "centrepiece" of a $50 million project to turn the SCA into an ecotourism venture, in the hopes of attracting more visitors to the region each year.
The project included plans to build the state's first via ferrata route — with fixed protections like metal pegs and cables to aid climbers' safe movement around cliffs and mountains — as well as the development of other rockclimbing areas, zip-lines, "spectacular" suspension bridges and canyoning.
But the NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said the community was clear in its opposition.
"There was a lot of concern about the impact on the park," she told the ABC.
"There's a real desire to make this area an absolutely fantastic place for families, and for people to use … the environment [in a way] that really celebrates the pagodas."
Bushwalking NSW executive officer Kirsten Mayer said she was worried the activities would damage the area's rock formations.
"We are delighted," she said.
"Our national parks are absolutely magnificent in their own right — they don't need a theme park to make them appealing."
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