PLANNING Minister Sonya Kilkenny has called in an application by mining giant Heidelberg Materials to remove native vegetation to widen and seal Stanley Road in Grantville for sand trucks to service their proposed new quarry.
Heidelberg Materials wants to widen and seal Stanley Road to service a quarry approved in 1996, but never opened.
In February, Bass Coast councillors rejected the application, declaring the removal of native vegetation in a significant Western Port Woodlands biolink unacceptable under multiple council policies.
The company appealed to VCAT. Now the planning minister has referred it to a Priority Projects Standing Advisory Committee for resolution, declaring the sand is of “state significance” with an estimated resource value of about $73 million.
“We have no doubt this application will be approved,” Save Western Port Woodlands spokeswoman Catherine Watson said.
“It’s set up to be approved regardless of local objections. That doesn’t feel like democracy.”
Mixed messages
The Bass Coast Distinctive Areas and Landscapes (DAL) project recognised the Western Port Woodlands as an area of outstanding environmental significance that must be protected.
“This quiet country lane will become an industrial haul road, with around 80 truck movements every day transporting sand to Lang Lang for processing.
“Sand trucks will run past Adams Estate and through the Grantville and Lang Lang townships.
“That means more noise, dust, roadkill, road safety risks and congestion on already stressed highways and roundabouts.”
Ms Watson stressed that Save Western Port Woodlands was not against sand mining.
“We know sand is needed for Melbourne’s Big Build and housing.
“But we believe the Minister has called in the wrong project.
“The government itself has identified vast sand resources on cleared farmland in Cardinia and Baw Baw through the new Strategic
Extraction Resource Areas (SERA).
“The Stanley Road quarry is a marginal site and a stopgap measure while Heidelberg goes through the application process for its future flagship quarry on a much larger site next to its current quarry in McDonald’s Track, Lang Lang.
“That site is on degraded farmland, it has decades of sand supply, and it’s over 20 kilometres closer to Melbourne.
“That means far fewer trucks for residents of Lang Lang and Grantville, no destruction of wildlife corridors, and cheaper transport costs for Heidelberg.
“We appeal to Minister Kilkenny to fast-track that project, which would achieve the same planning outcomes with reduced economic, community and environmental costs.
“And we call on Heidelberg to live up to their mission statement: ‘Building a Sustainable Future’.
“Clearing a vital wildlife corridor is the opposite of sustainability. Walk away and leave the neighbourhood in peace, wildlife and humans.”
