NEW regulations proposed for beach boxes will eventually see their ownership restricted to Mornington Peninsula residents or ratepayers. At present, licence renewals for 56 per cent of the 820 beach boxes managed by Mornington Peninsula Shire are sent to addresses outside of the municipality. New regulations proposed by the shire aim to bring beach box ownership back to the peninsula and also limit the number of licences to one a person. Cr David Gill said owning property on the peninsula was a requirement for beach box licences “until recent decades”, making the change “a renewal of a lapsed policy”. He…
Author: Keith Platt
HUNDREDS of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders and their families are being vaccinated against the flu and tested for COVID-19 at car park clinics in Frankston and Hastings. Those attending the clinics are met by medical staff wearing masks and, in some cases, gowns bought online from food industry suppliers. The clinics are run by First Peoples’ Health and Wellbeing, whose CEO Karinda Taylor says the peninsula needs a health service controlled by the Aboriginal community “if we are ever going to make headway on closing the health gap in the area”. Thomastown-based First Peoples’ Health and Wellbeing was earlier…
BEACHES have been closed in Frankston and across the Mornington Peninsula. Mornington Peninsula Shire mayor Cr Sam Hearn said beaches were closed Saturday morning following advice from the Department of Environment Lands Water and Planning and senior police. The advice was issued after crowds gathered at St Kilda beach on Thursday, despite warnings of the need to lessen the spread of COVID-19 through close contact. The shire also received complaints about crowds at The Pillars cliff jumping site at Mount Martha. On Saturday, police were telling people to leave shire-controlled beaches “They [the government] told us they were going to…
IT can be viewed as a sad commentary on humanity that children happily play where lives were brutally lost. Or perhaps the apparent incongruity of such a scene is testament to the human spirit of survival. Artist William Kelly describes Guernica in northern Spain as “a lovely city with children playing in parks”. But looming large in Kelly’s mindset is also the horror and brutality depicted in Pablo Picasso’s 1937 oil painting, Guernica. An optimist, Kelly’s own art is designed to create dialogue, peace talk, if you like. Kelly, who lives in Cheltenham, is known for his sweeping statement “art…
MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire’s declaration of a “climate emergency” may put it on a collision course with both state and federal governments over the Port of Hastings. Two significant moves made by the shire last month could lead to it opposing hydrogen gas produced in the Latrobe Valley and opposing a container port because of potential environmental, social and economic impacts on Hastings. A brown coal-to-hydrogen scheme involves a plant now being built at AGL’s Loy Yang power station site and a hydrogen liquefication and loading terminal in Bayview Road, Hastings. The project consortium is led by Kawasaki Heavy Industries and…