Loss of serenity
THE Adams Estate at Glen Forbes is a secret little settlement of about 30 houses that would have stayed a beautiful, tranquil secret if it wasn’t for sand mining and the plans by Hanson Construction Materials to widen the access road to one of...
THE Adams Estate at Glen Forbes is a secret little settlement of about 30 houses that would have stayed a beautiful, tranquil secret if it wasn’t for sand mining and the plans by Hanson Construction Materials to widen the access road to one of their mines.
They’ve lodged an application with the Bass Coast Shire Council for a planning permit to remove 36 mature trees and other native vegetation along Stanley “for the expansion of the road and construction of a footpath”.
Fed up with the impact of the mining and the movement of trucks, the people of the estate simply don’t want their residential bush setting destroyed to make way for more noise, dust, trucks, light and dead animals.
They’ve already contributed 43 objections and last Friday, they turned out in force to get the message across with some pointed messages on posters, and with a few words from their spokesperson, Janet Grimes, a 50-year resident of the Adams Estate.
“The main issue is the devastation of the woodland and the trucks. They want to cut down 36 trees along the road reserve, together with scrubland and other grassland to be removed.
“It’s the road widening, the loss of vegetation and the trucks,” said Mrs Grimes.
Another resident, Ringo Gannon, said the whole length of the road, from the Bass Highway to McGrady’s Road would be impacted.
“They’re talking about 1.73 hectares. We estimate it will be closer to 76 trees that will go and that there’ll be a significant increase in truck movements, 7am to 7pm six days-a-week,” he said.
Removal of the trees, increase in trucks, impact on wildlife, airborne silica and increase in crime are some of the issues raised by objectors.
“If the utterly sick decision of a go-ahead on bombarding the Adams Estate, with these industrial-scale levels of chaos is given, where does that leave us the homeowners?” said one of the objectors, anticipating that speed, noise and frequency of truck movements will exceed permits once the operation begins.
Western Port Woodlands spokesperson Catherine Watson says that it’s a great shame the application for the road widening has been allowed to go forward to council given the outcome of the Strategic
Extractive Resource Areas (SERA) review which excluded the entire Bass Coast Shire from future sand mine development and the likely scaling back of operations.
Council is likely to consider the application for vegetation removal and road widening at its council meeting in February or March, leaving time for interested people to make further submissions.
