Southern Peninsula
Features inside: HEALTHY LIVING PAGES 32 – 33 FOOD & ENTERTAINMENT PAGES 34 – 36 SOUTHERN PENINSULA SCOREBOARD PAGES 37 – 39
Local news for local people
Your FREE Fortnightly Community Newspaper covering Safety Beach to Portsea For all your advertising and editorial needs, call us on 1300
FREE
9 August – 22 August 2011
MPNEWS (1300 676 397) or email: team@mpnews.com.au www.mpnews.com.au
No foreshore pool: Members of Friends of Rosebud Beach and Foreshore, Mornington Peninsula Ratepayers and Residents Association, Blue Wedges Coalition and McCrae Action Group protest outside Nepean MP Martin Dixon’s office in Monday morning. Mr Dixon was in Melbourne.
‘Friends’ quit over pool By Mike Hast THE Friends of Rosebud Beach and Foreshore group has handed back a $5500 grant and resigned in protest over the proposed Southern Peninsula Aquatic Centre (SPA). Last week Mornington Peninsula Shire issued a press release revealing it had been given a glimmer of hope over its 12-year-old proposal to build a multimillion dollar pool complex in Rosebud. Mayor Graham Pittock stated Envi-
Shire’s glimmer of hope ronment Minister Ryan Smith had invited the shire to complete and submit its Rosebud Foreshore Management Plan, which identified a site for the aquatic centre. The press release stated: “The Minister stated in a letter to Shire Mayor Cr
Marshall’s HOLIDAY RENTALS SORRENTO OFFICE We are the largest on the Mornington Peninsula
9best service 9best ROI
9biggest team 9100% holiday focus
TE WA N
D
TIEITSY GUESTS R E P L
P R O FOR QUA
5984 5955 www.MyRentals.com.au 119 Ocean Beach Rd. Upstairs (cnr. Darling Rd.)
Graham Pittock that he would ‘instruct (his) department to process the plan in a timely and constructive manner as the appropriate first step in the approval process for SPA’.” It is the first positive indication yet that the state government will allow a
pool on the shire’s preferred foreshore site, which the shire has been seeking for more than five years. Since 2006, the shire had repeatedly been told by the Department of Sustainability and Environment – the government’s foreshore land manager – that a pool on the foreshore would not be approved. DSE guidelines state buildings on Port Phillip foreshore must be coastal dependent, for example, life saving club, yacht clubs and coast guard offices.
RENTALS WANTED
HOLIDAY & PERMANENTS We urgently require permanent & holiday rental properties to meet demand in Portsea, Sorrento , Blairgowrie & Rye! Call our Rental Managers for a FREE appraisal now!
Intense lobbying by Nepean MP Martin Dixon, shire CEO Michael Kennedy and Crs Pittock and David Gibb plus a change of policy – which appears to have been forced on DSE by the new state government – makes a foreshore pool more likely than ever. The change by the government has infuriated the Friends group, formed 14 years ago to improve the foreshore section centred around the Village Green, the preferred site for the pool. Continued Page 8
THANK YOU ! For making us
1
NO.
Across Portsea-Sorrento After a record month in a changing market – we URGENTLY require properties to sell NOW across Blairgowrie, Rye, St Andrews Beach, * REIV SALES RESULTS 2009 – CURRENT Sorrento and Portsea!
That’s why we’re no1 in Portsea-Sorrento! Call Troy Daly (Principal) on 0418 397 771 for a free appraisal & market report and experience the difference
109 OCEAN BEACH ROAD SORRENTO 5984 4388 www.jpdixon.com.au www.jpdixonportseasorrento.com.au