Quarry fight not over

Quarry appeal means fight not over

Beerburrum’s recent anti-quarry victory celebrations could prove to be short lived.

In an unsurprising move, the Victorian-based company that plans to open a new hard rock quarry, the Barro Group, lodged an appeal just before Easter against the Sunshine Coast Council’s refusal of its development application.

The council has notified the Queensland Planning and Environment Court of its intention to fight the appeal.

The appeal comes after council voted to reject its planning officer’s recommendation to approve the application, with local councillor Rick Baberowski leading the charge and convincing his fellow councillors to vote down the quarry.

Barro Group general manager (Queensland) Ian Ridoutt leaves no doubt as to the company’s opinion of the councillors’ decision to override the planning staff’s recommendation.

“The Sunshine Cost councillors have shown no trust in the recommendations of their own officers’ assessment,” Mr Ridoutt said.

“Council officers’ 28-month assessment of the Burrum Quarry development application was thorough and exhaustive and the conditions contained in their recommendation of approval were made in consideration of both the local community submissions and the needs of the greater Sunshine Coast community,” he said.

“It is our opinion that in some cases the conditions recommended were in excess of what a court would consider to be reasonable and relevant. However, if the councillors had approved the development application, as recommended by the officers, then all the conditions would probably have been accepted.

“The site of the Burrum Quarry is one of the best on the whole of the Sunshine Coast. There are no better or higher land use zonings, planning instruments or legislation that exist for use of the site as a quarry other than those that exist with this site.

“Cr Rick Baberowski’s claims that there is no need for additional quarry supplies is disingenuous, uniformed and is in direct opposition to what his council’s officers said in their report.”

Mr Ridoutt made reference to last December when Hanson Quarry voluntarily suspended sales, having already sold the volume of rock it can transport in a calendar year.

“More recent advice from the state government as well as council indicate that a shortage currently exists in hard rock material readily available on the Sunshine Coast. The proposed quarry at Beerburrum is well placed geographically to commence quarrying and satisfy this forecast shortfall/need.

“The quarry material in this part of the Sunshine Coast is already on rations and it is concerning that Cr Baberowski does not either know or acknowledge that the situation will only become more critical,” Mr Ridoutt said.

The local community of Beerburrum isn’t giving up according to comments posted on the Beerburrum Action Group Facebook page.

“Big businesses need to realise that in lodging an appeal against a decision made by a local council in favour of the community that they represent, that their company is showing utter disrespect for the council and the communities in question,” a Facebook post stated.

“Would the owners and operators of these large companies be amenable to tolerating the noise, the dust, and the constant flow of truck traffic through their local area on a daily basis? The answer to that is no.

“So what makes them arrogantly assume that the residents of the township of Beerburrum would, in fact, accept this proposal without so much as a whimper?”

The Beerburrum community is being strongly supported by Cr Baberowski.

"I will be meeting with the Beerburrum group to help them better understand council’s role in the appeal process and provide what advice I can from the appeals team on what they can do to be prepared, assuming some may have taken up their co-respondent rights as submitters,” Cr Baberowski said.

See next week’s Glasshouse Country & Maleny News for more on the issue.