Hume Coal offers quick $60 million Southern Highlands sale after mine rejected

The largest landholding in the Southern Highlands has been listed for sale in one job lot in a quick two-week campaign after the Independent Planning Commission knocked back a coal mine proposed for the site.

Hume Coal, an Australian subsidiary of Korean steel giant POSCO, is asking more than $60 million for the vast 1308-hectare holding where it has long battled for approval of a $533 million underground mine.

The controversial project has at times polarised the community since it was first mooted more than a decade ago, given POSCO’s touted employment opportunities and local fears over environmental damage to surrounding farmland.

The project was rejected three weeks ago on the grounds that it did not “achieve an appropriate balance between relevant environmental, economic and social considerations” and the impacts of the mine “cannot be reasonably and satisfactorily avoided, mitigated and managed through conditions”.

Ray White Parkes agent Kim Watts said her instructions from the owners was a quick turnaround on the sale, prompting a two-week campaign ahead of a September 30 expressions of interest deadline.

Despite early price discussions of more than $60 million, Ms Watts said interested parties had inundated her within hours of the property hitting the market.

Ms Watts said the nine properties extend from Sutton Forest, Berrima, Moss Vale, Medway and Hume Coal’s offices in the Berrima town and will not be sold separately.

There are also 1970 megalitres of water licences on offer, which can be purchased whole or in parcels as required.

The most significant of the nine properties is the historic Mereworth house that dates back to 1820 when it was part of a land grant awarded to John Atkinson. Its nine-bedroom residence was designed by architect John Amory in the French provincial style with a distinctive mansard roof.

From 1963 it was owned by the Oxley family, of Bushells Tea fame, until 2014 when it was sold to Hume Coal for $11.1 million after an approach by a mystery buyer.

At the time, it was purchased by a shelf company, SF Pastoral, and Tony Oxley told Domain he never knew specifically the buyer was Hume Coal, but he had a fairly strong inkling.

At the time, the nearby property Evandale was sold by Colleen and Malcolm Reid, co-owners of the shipbuilding company Harwood Marine, for $11.634 million.

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban never joined the local action group against the mine, despite their Bunya Hill property at Sutton Forest being a near neighbour, but in 2012 their objection to the mine was noted by a placard left handing on the gate saying “No Coal or Coal Seam Gas”.

The withdrawal of the mine is expected to boost values further, given the mine’s proposed lease area had long deterred investors.

The largest land holdings sold in the Southern Highlands is the 200-hectare property Comfort Hill at Sutton Forest, sold for $15 million in 2007 to the late Reg Grundy and that high was matched two years ago by tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes when he bought the 155-hectare property Widgee Waa in Kangaloon from investment banker Mark Burrows.