How would you like to look at this every day from your bedroom window?
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That’s the outlook Kevin and Noeline Peterson had until the operator of Common Street Recycling built a fence partially hiding a great pile of building and recycling waste next door to them.
The barrier is small comfort to the elderly couple, who now say they’re contending with rats from the yard getting into their home. The facility’s operating manager Chris Eveston rejects this but how can he be so certain with up to 5000 tonnes of material on site? Pest control can only do so much.
Rats in anyone’s home are a clear health hazard. The Petersons, an elderly couple who’ve lived in the same home for 60 years, should not have to be continually chasing the EPA and the council over licence compliance issues associated with this site.
The yard should never have been allowed in Common Street, despite its industrial zoning. It is an open pile, there are homes in the street, a quarry pit onsite and a spring running through the land. Why the EPA and Sydney Catchment Authority signed off on the operation is mind boggling.
We note with interest the EPA’s prosecution of Mr Eveston for illegally operating a Girraween waste recycling site in 2014 and its current investigation of alleged “multiple breaches” of subsequent clean-up notices at that facility.
We do not suggest the Goulburn site is being operated illegally but we wholeheartedly agree with the council that it is hardly neighbourly. Perhaps it should take a leaf out of Endeavour Industries’ book just around the corner.
Progressing Union St saga
Many were caught up in the traffic on Friday as the Police Attestation made things even more congested at the Union St and Sydney Rd intersection.
The RMS issued a statement on Friday (August 18) saying they were meeting with the council this month to “discuss all options to progress a way forward.”
But Mayor Bob Kirk has lost patience with the RMS, saying “it is time for action – not more talk.” Motorists would agree.
How many more studies does RMS need to understand there is a major problem with this intersection?
Our page 3 story states what they are doing – “reviewing the layout of the approach lanes on Union Street,” modelling traffic volumes and analysing vehicles using the intersection. Meanwhile, the traffic sits.