SOME Camden Haven residents are still unhappy with the Port Macquarie-Hastings Council's procedures leading up to the vote on the preferred location of the Kew Waste Transfer Station.
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As reported in the October 23, 2013, edition of the Courier, Cr Sharon Griffiths put a series of questions on notice asking the General Manager to "provide an updated report on the Camden Haven Waste Transfer Station . . . to address concerns of residents regarding site selection".
Read the residents' concerns here.
The council's Development and Environment Director, Matt Rogers, provided responses to each of the 11 questions to the November council meeting.
Asked by Cr Griffiths about further options for community consultation, for instance, his response was: "The community will have further opportunity to review the detailed design through the development application exhibition process. It is proposed that residents in the vicinity of the Herons Creek Road site and those who made submissions to the site selection process be formally invited to comment on the development application and that the application will be advertised publicly to enable community representations to be made."
However community members opposed to the decision feel some of the issues they have raised have still not been conclusively resolved, especially the decision to opt for a waste transfer station on the narrow, unsealed Herons Creek Road, when the council in 2005 had compulsorily acquired, via legal proceedings and at considerable expense, the "Taylors Quarry" site off Ocean Drive at Kew, specifically for use as a waste transfer station.
Asked how the council, given all this, had chosen the Herons Creek Road option, the Mayor, Peter Besseling, said the decision to compulsorily acquire the Taylors Quarry site was taken by the previous council, and was not a move the current council would necessarily support.
Despite the funds outlaid on acquiring that site, in the current circumstances the Herons Creek site option was the most cost-effective, he said, questioning the sense in "throwing good money after bad" and that the history of the site was not a relevant matter for the current council.
This council had to deal with "what's before it at this time".
The Taylors Quarry site would require "significant road infrastructure" spending before a waste transfer station could be built there.
There are drawbacks and challenges with all three site options available, Cr Besseling said, but the Herons Creek Road site has the fewest.
It is close to the Pacific Highway, allowing for easy access to the Cairncross tip site, and would cause the minimum impact on the community.
"The Camden Haven needs the waste transfer facility - and it has to go somewhere," Cr Besseling said.
"It is important to remember that the vote in the council was nine-nil - all the councillors agreed it was the best location for the facility."
