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Tuesday 1 February 2022
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Sculpture swap
A NEW sculpture by artist Manon van Kouswijk (pictured with McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park curator Simon Lawrie) has been installed on Peninsula Link. It has replaced a piece by Michael Riddle, which will soon make its way to the Langwarrin sculpture park. See story page 5. Picture: Steve Brown
New boat facility plans on the horizon Brodie Cowburn brodie@baysidenews.com.au PLANNING for a safe boat harbour in Frankston will be undertaken as part of a state government strategy to improve boating in Victoria. The Victorian Recreational Boating Strategy recently released by the state government outlines key projects and priorities in Victorian waterways. The 2021/2022 action plan attached to the strategy recommends commencing planning for a Frankston safe harbour to “enhance the Victorian boating experience”. Better Boating Victoria said through
a spokesperson that it hopes that building a new “destination facility” at Frankston will provide “more berthing for Port Phillip boaters”. However, the prospect of building a boating facility in Frankston has left some environmentalists seething. The action plan lacks details about exactly where the boat harbour would be or what it would look like. A spokesperson for Better Boating Victoria says “the location and scope of any facility would be further explored through consultation with locals, user groups and facility and land managers.” “There is limited availability of public destination facilities in this section of the bay, and the provision of ad-
ditional berths, moorings and tourist jetties will aim to accommodate future growth and support local boating tourism,” the spokesperson said. Not too long ago, a lack of state or federal government support saw Frankston Council scrap a proposal to build a boat refuge at Oliver’s Hill. That decision was made in October 2019. Kananook Creek Association life member and 2021 Frankston senior citizen of the year Rob Thurley is one prominent environmentalist furious at renewed plans for a boating facility in Frankston. He said “it’s an insane proposal for many reasons to put a marina in Port Phillip Bay, a place which has been set up as a marine sanctuary. The
reefs are not there to be concreted in, they are valuable in their own way.” “It will take two or three years alone to do a proper environmental effects statement. Any proposal, if it was funded privately or by the state government, needs the necessary studies. We need independent and reliable studies,” he said. “This has been looked at for five decades, the economic, environmental and social implications of a marina. In October 2019, council acknowledged there was no support for a facility at Oliver’s Hill and we thought it was dead. “Why on earth would you put at risk the safest and cleanest beach in Victoria? (...) Will this council lie down and let the state government do what they
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want or will they act transparently on behalf of the residents who live here and stand up to them?” When asked for Frankston Council’s position on the construction of a safe boat harbour, the mayor Nathan Conroy said “in October 2019, councillors voted unanimously on an extensive resolution related to the matter – noting the challenge for council to further develop and advance a project of this magnitude, community interest and importance for broader levels of government. They also noted that detailed technical assessments on the boat harbour project were to be forwarded to the state and federal governments for consideration.” Continued page 4