Crugnale hands woodlands overlay back to council

OUTGOING Bass MP Jordan Crugnale has told Bass Coast Shire Council to pick up the pen again and finish the work needed to protect the Western Port Woodlands after interim planning controls missed the cut before the caretaker period.

Ms Crugnale said she shared the community’s disappointment that an Interim Environmental Significance Overlay (ESO) was not in place before caretaker started, but people deserved to know why.

She pointed to the Department of Transport and Planning’s (DTP) October 30 response to council, which said the 32 technical documents council supplied needed to be pulled together into a single integrated assessment.

“While the 32 technical documents provided by council go some way to justifying an interim ESO5, these need to be consolidated into an integrated assessment of the area prepared by a suitable expert,” the department told council.

“That is not a minor administrative issue,” Ms Crugnale said.

“The integrated assessment is the planning justification needed to support what is effectively subordinate legislation.”

“Put simply, Council handed over a box of reports, studies and technical documents and appears to have expected DTP to pull it all together and do the work required to substantiate its application,” she said.

“This was not a completed application sitting on a Minister’s desk waiting for a signature.”

Council has taken a different view of the delay. After lodging its response to the department in September, Bass Coast Mayor Cr Brett Tessari said council had completed the work, funded the investigations and responded to every request, and urged the State Government to act before caretaker provisions started on November 3.

“The next step is for the State Government to act,” Cr Tessari said.

“Every month without adequate safeguards in place increases the risk that its environmental values could be lost forever.”

Council has committed $500,000 towards biodiversity investigations and strategic planning work for long-term protections, and said in May it had already tabled a draft ESO with the Distinctive Areas and Landscapes advisory committee and the State Government had said no.

Ms Crugnale said DTP had not rejected interim protections and had advised council to contact the department to discuss planning support available through the Regional Planning Hub program.

“I strongly encourage Council to take up this offer immediately,” she said.

Council applied on June 12 for an interim ESO Schedule 5 over land in the woodlands, then supplied the 32 technical documents on September 24 after DTP asked for more information.

“The pathway forward has been clearly identified. Now it is time for Council to pick up that pen again, accept the assistance of the Regional Planning Hub planners, and get it done,” Ms Crugnale said.

Ms Crugnale is not recontesting Bass at the November 28 state election.