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Tuesday 20 October 2020
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Coronavirus threatens Christmas cake sales JOANNE Gunnersen “Christmas treats” have raised more than $162,000 for the Cancer Council of Victoria over the past 12 years. Starting in 2008, Ms Gunnersen has seen production of Joanne’s Handmade Christmas Cakes rise from 200 cakes to nearly 11,000. The money goes to fight bladder, pancreatic and kidney and other “insidious and hidden” cancers which, she says, tend to be under funded. However, COVID-19 is likely to impact the number of gift wrapped cakes she is able to produce this year. “Cakes on menu for cancer fight” Page 9 Picture: Yanni
Signing up against quarry Stephen Taylor steve@mpnews.com.au CONSERVATION groups are stepping up their campaign against a proposed quarry right next to Arthur’s Seat State Park. The #SaveArthursSeat petition passed 18,000 signatures last week. “We have seen an incredible outpouring of community concern about this new quarry proposal,” Michelle de la Coeur, of lead campaigner Peninsula Preservation Group, said.
“We have been inundated with inquiries from people across the Mornington Peninsula and the greater Victorian community wanting to understand its potential impact on the Arthurs Seat State Park biolink, remnant bushland and our native animals, including koalas and other small mammals. “We have also seen a steep escalation in interest from the Red Hill Consolidated School community with questions raised about potential air quality impacts and longer term community health if the proposal is approved.” The various groups are concerned
that the Ross Trust – which operates Hillview Quarries – is preparing its own environmental effects statement to support its application to dig a new quarry on previously untouched bushland at 115 Boundary Road, Dromana. Hillview CEO Paul Nitas said of the EES: “We are finalising the last of the existing conditions assessments, which include ecology, the proposed quarry footprint/buffers, landscape and visual. “The EES assessment studies will continue for another 12 months, which will include possible impact assessments, technical reference group
evaluations, community information sessions and then for public exhibition prior to lodgment. “When complete, it will be heard by Planning Panels Victoria [and] we anticipate a decision in the first quarter of 2022.” Some parents of children at Red Hill Consolidated School, which is only several hundred metres south of the quarry site as the crow flies, paraded with placards against the proposal last week. “Ross Trust what about our children’s health”, one placard read. Oth-
ers read: “Off our seat: No to new quarry”. The Save Arthurs Seat group says many bush species but especially koalas are under threat from the quarry slated to produce 70 million tonnes of granite over the next 70 years. The group is urging residents to oppose the quarry beside an existing Hillview – formerly Pioneer – quarry at 121 Boundary Road that they say will destroy natural habitat as well as the biolink that animals traverse to access two sections of the state park. Continued Page 7
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