Meeting today on recycling centre
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THE long winding road to reach a decision - one way or the other - on the projected north Goulburn waste centre nears its final twist today.
A meeting of the Joint Regional Planning Panel (Southern Region) will hear submissions for and against the controversial facility at a public forum in the Goulburn Mulwaree Council chambers, starting at 1.30pm.
A total of 17 speakers, including a cross-section of potentially affected Goulburn residents, businesses, environmental guardians, Council planners, representatives of Denrith Pty Ltd and consultants have registered to speak at the forum.
The meeting will be chaired by former NSW Environment minister Pam Allan, who is chair of the JRPP’s southern region. Denrith Pty Ltd, of which Goulburn businessman Andrew Divall is a director, has lodged a development application with Council for the waste and resource transfer station in Bridge St, off Sydney Rd.
More than 40 people have lodged objections with Council to the proposed facility at this site, on environmental, health, odour and noise grounds.
Denrith has told Council the facility will be designed and built to the highest specifications in order to allay any of these concerns. In a submission to Council, the company said it hoped to achieve three main aims with the development:
1. To relocate Endeavour Industries’ Oxley St recycling facility, because it had outgrown its present site;
2. To provide a facility to handle other recyclables and waste, including green waste, concrete, scrap steel, demolition material “and also asbestos if it suited Council’s purpose.”
3. To give Council a long-term solution to putrescible waste handling and transfer, as its current landfill site had a limited life. On October 18, when opponents of the project, as well as a Denrith representative, addressed a public council meeting, councillors were at pains to point out they’d made no decision on their longterm waste management arrangements.
The JRPP will decide the application, possibly in late November, after it has heard speakers at today’s forum. Today’s speakers are: Rodney Falconer (Goulburn Group); Chris Stewart (Goulburn Mulwaree Council director of Planning and Community Services); Margaret Cunningham; David Humphreys (President Endeavour Industries); Warren Matthews; Paul Alessi; Vanessa Kelly; Kevin Watchirs; Richard Orchard (North Goulburn Action Group); Marjorie White; Maeve Ramsay. On behalf of Denrith Pty Ltd: Bill Wilkes (Goulburn Field Naturalists); Peter Walker (Denrith); Robert Mowle (Laterals Engineering and Management); Martin Davenport and Martin Doyle (SLR Consulting); Benny Chen (MLT Traffic).
The forum, starting at 1.30pm is open to the public.
