KINGSTON’S Green Wedge still faces the prospect of being used as a waste hub for metropolitan Melbourne despite Kingston Council opposing any such move.
A Statewide Waste and Resource Recovery Infrastructure Plan (SWRRIP) released by the state government in June has again named Clayton and Dingley as potential locations for a waste hub.
Kingston councillors highlighted the risk at the latest public council meeting late last month and have urged Labor Planning Minister Richard Wynne and Environment Minister Lisa Neville to amend the plan to remove any mention of Kingston’s Green Wedge being used as a waste hub.
Council wants Green Wedge land not privately owned to be used for a chain of parks for public use in the long term.
At last month’s meeting Cr Paul Peulich expressed fears about the state government leaving the door open to waste operations in Kingston’s Green Wedge.
“The concern that I have is that this plan is still unclear as to the standing of materials recycling in the Green Wedge and the fact that it also nominates … hubs of state importance in the metropolitan region [including] the Clayton and Dingley precinct,” he said.
All councillors backed a motion to write to the relevant government ministers and local state MPs for their support to exclude Kingston’s Green Wedge from any future waste hub plans.
Kingston mayor Cr Geoff Gledhill told The News he had spoken to state government representatives since last month’s council meeting.
“I have had discussions with the office of the Environment Minister and I’ve been assured the SWIRIP is basically just a positioning paper. It is not a specific definitive paper in the way a planning document is.”
Cr Gledhill did note there is still a danger parts of the Green Wedge could be used as a waste hub and said uncertainty would remain until the Planning Minister approved a C143 planning amendment lodged by council in May to rezone the Clayton-Dingley precinct from a Special Use Zone, allowing waste-related activities, to a Green Wedge A Zone.
“At the end of the day of the day what we need to provide certainty in that part of the Green Wedge is C143 to be approved. Until we have a definitive planning document … we will always remain up in the air,” he said.
The Statewide Waste and Resource Recovery Infrastructure Plan aims to establish seven Regional Waste and Resource Recovery Implementation Plans “to capture the needs and priorities of each region of Victoria” including Melbourne for the next 30 years.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 9 September 2015
