WE WERE greatly concerned to read your story ‘Council orders rare native forest to be cleared’ in your April 9 issue.
In the 1990s sand companies threatened to overwhelm the Grantville area with an uncapped number of sand mines. Phil Westwood and others, such as Pete Smith, led the push back by setting up the Grantville Action Group (GAG). Along with the Bass Valley and District Branch of the South Gippsland Conservation Society (SGCS) and many local people, Phil and his wife Anne couldn’t have worked harder to protect our precious remnant native vegetation and the wildlife dependent on it.
As we now have a council aware of the value of the Western Port Woodlands, we cannot understand why community heroes such as the Westwoods are back fighting to have the values of our bushland recognised and protected.
As one of the two community representatives, along with Bill Sims, Phil Westwood helped draw up the ‘Regional Sand Extraction Strategy, Lang Lang to Grantville’ in 1996. They, sand companies and the Government, signed off on the document which was supposed to protect sensitive sites.
Why isn’t the Council referring to this document for guidance?
We welcome Council coming in to protect the site now being decimated in the Stanley Road area and doing everything it can to support the Westwoods in their renewed fight for our bushland, a fight which we thought had been won in 1996-7.
Meryl & Hartley Tobin, Grantville
