A BLUEPRINT to cope with climate change flooding in the Rosebud and McCrae area in the short term and over the next 90 years has been released. The Port Phillip Coastal Adaptation Pathways Program states the benefits of “occupying the hazard zone, derived from its use by residents and businesses, is valued at about $35 million a year between now and 2100” and Mornington Peninsula Shire should start spending money to adapt to predicted sea level rise and significant flooding caused by extreme rainfall. The adaptation program studied four bayside areas – Rosebud-McCrae, Mordialloc, Elwood and Southbank as well as…
Author: Mike Hast
THE proposed expansion of the Port of Hastings was given a boost on Wednesday when the state government promised $110 million over four years. New Premier Denis Napthine visited Hastings with his new Ports Minister, David Hodgett, and said the money would help “complete the work required to start building a world-class container port with land-side transport connections at Hastings”. The money would be spent on “completion of preferred scope”, design, transport connection planning, early work to support environmental approval processes, business case development and “procurement and delivery strategies”. Dr Napthine said the port was a key component of Victoria’s…
POINT Nepean at the end of the Mornington Peninsula is one of four national parks slated for tourism development. Over Easter, the state government released guidelines for the building of hotels, restaurants and other visitor facilities at Point Nepean, Port Campbell, Wilsons Promontory and the Grampians (Gariwerd). The government’s intentions were first outlined in The News last year (“Parks a govt development target”, Western Port News 14/8/12 and Mornington News 21/8/12). The News reported that extensive work had already been done developing Point Nepean National Park. It is one of Mornington Peninsula Shire’s top tourist priorities – “accommodation, conferencing and…
THE start of work on the Aldi store in Somerville brings to an end a long-running saga that revealed the loss of historical memory in the town, says historian Leila Shaw. Ms Shaw’s father Thomas Brunning, a First World War veteran, in 1946 donated land for an infant welfare centre at 1097 Frankston-Flinders Rd as a practical memorial for those who served in the Second World War. Residents worked hard during postwar austere times to raise money to build the centre, which was opened in July 1954 along with wrought iron memorial gates at the entrance bearing the word “Lest…
THE Arthurs Seat chairlift was removed on Wednesday last week and now lies in a Dromana storage yard awaiting transport to Adelaide. Its removal brings to an end a long and sometimes bitter battle between Richard Hudson, who has owned the chairlift for more than 30 years, and the state government’s WorkSafe Authority and Parks Victoria. The chairlift troubles started on 3 January 2003 when one of eight pylons collapsed, sending about a dozen people to hospital and stranding many of the 50 people aboard, some for up to six hours. A WorkSafe investigation found the collapse was caused by…
MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire has awarded expanded infrastructure maintenance contracts to Transfield Services. Transfield announced the contract last Tuesday, although the shire has not yet made a public statement. The decision is likely to see smaller contractors lose work from the shire. Graeme Hunt, Transfield’s managing director and chief executive, said the company would “continue its 15-year relationship with the …shire in three expanded 10-year contracts providing sustainable infrastructure maintenance services for $190 million”. “We are thrilled to be able to continue to apply our expertise in long-term asset management principles to the Mornington Peninsula Shire, in one of the company’s…
RETIRED pharmacologist Dr Martin Rush is the Australian Greens candidate for Flinders at the 7 September election. Dr Rush (pictured) was a last-minute candidate after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced the election date. The Greens man wasted no time commenting on peninsula issues, slamming the proposed rubbish tip on the Arthurs Seat escarpment at Dromana. Dr Rush said he was “particularly concerned about the proposed development of the rubbish tip adjacent to Arthurs Seat State Park, the future of Hastings as a port and its impact on Western Port wetlands and marine sanctuaries, the despoilment of the Tootgarook Swamp by…
AN old quarry on the eastern side of Arthurs Seat could become the Mornington Peninsula’s newest rubbish tip. Hillview Quarries, owned by R E Ross Trust, is expected to submit an application to the shire council in about four weeks. The landfill plan would see the former Pioneer Quarry, which is east of Arthurs Seat State Park and north of Arthurs Seat Rd, used to dump household waste – 75 per cent from the shire and 25 per cent from outside. Up to 100 trucks a day would enter the bush precinct off Boundary Rd in Dromana. The proposal has…
PENINSULA Link freeway opened early last Friday, the fulfillment of a 44-year dream of roadbuilders who marked a freeway reserve in the third edition of Melway in 1969. This was when the state government planned to build a new suburb for 40,000 people on the Moorooduc Plains between Mornington and Somerville to house workers for industrial development at Western Port. The government’s big plans for Western Port did not come to full fruition, but the reserve stayed on the map. The 27-kilometre Peninsula Link connects EastLink tollway and Mornington Peninsula Freeway in Carrum Downs with the Mornington Peninsula Freeway at…
FRANKSTON Hospital will not reopen its short-stay ward of 10 beds until Easter. The move has been forced on the hospital by federal government cuts announced just before Christmas. On 18 December it was stated Victorian hospitals would start closing beds after the federal government cut $107 million from Victoria’s health budget. The cuts to funding came after the Australian Bureau of Statistics reduced population estimates for the current financial year, triggering the cut. On Wednesday, hospital spokesman John Jukes said the ward was meant to open this week after the summer break but would stay closed until Easter and…
TOOTGAROOK Wetlands activist Cameron Brown of Rosebud West has had a David and Goliath-type win in the state planning tribunal. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has found that a permit issued by Mornington Peninsula Shire for a housing development on the edge of the wetlands is invalid. The win has been hailed by conservationists as a victory for “people power” and another step toward stopping commercial and residential development in the wetlands, large parts of which are privately owned. The VCAT ruling has left Mornington Peninsula Shire severely embarrassed. If the development company is forced to remediate the block…
PENINSULA Link builder Linking Melbourne Authority is remaining tight-lipped about the expected opening date of the 27-kilometre freeway between Carrum Downs and Mt Martha. Rumours about the date have been circulating since before Christmas with one Melbourne radio station broadcasting Australia Day long weekend as a possible opening time. On Sunday, a Melbourne newspapers stated “the freeway does not open for at least another week” when reporting that users of Apple Maps on the iPhone had been wrongly directed to the unfinished road. Apple Maps users have been directed to the freeway for more than a month. On Tuesday, Gemma…
THE Mornington Park precinct was marred by rubbish after the hot weekend and looked like a Third World country, says resident Paul Smith. Mr Smith and former chamber of commerce president Scott Crowe are “citizen cleaners” who pick up rubbish in the precinct during regular morning and evening walks. The pair has been calling for improved rubbish collection for several years. “At 8pm on Sunday I visited the precinct while walking my dog. The whole area was absolutely disgusting, littered with rubbish and picnic waste everywhere,” Mr Smith said. “Rubbish bins where overflowing in Mornington Park, the Mothers Beach picnic…
UNITED Energy could face claims of hundreds of thousands of dollars following a massive power surge from a Mornington electricity substation on Wednesday morning. Up to 10,000 properties in Mornington, Mt Martha, Moorooduc and Somerville received 300 volts, 20 per cent more than normal, surging through power lines at about 9am. The CFA said there had been more than 55 calls for assistance, mostly generated by householders smelling smoke from electrical appliances and smouldering wiring. The CFA set up an emergency response team at its Moorooduc incident control centre to take calls from 000 and coordinate its response. Calls were…
MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire has its first Aboriginal cultural heritage adviser – Adam Edwards Magennis. Mr Magennis, 37, a Boonwurrung man, has just become a qualified archaeologist after studying for three years full time at La Trobe University. He will advise government and developers, devise cultural heritage management plans, and join 22 other Aboriginal archaeologists and the new Aboriginal Archaeologists Association, founded earlier this year. Mr Magennis has now set his sights on an honours degree, which will take two years part-time. He already has an idea for his thesis – a comparison between two of the great historical places on…
THE Victorian Labor Party has rejected more than six years of planning for an expanded Port of Hastings. Last week it released a jobs and investment strategy dumping its support of Hastings in favour of the so-called “Bay West” option, a new port proposed for the western side of Port Phillip between Geelong and Werribee. The decision is a massive about-face as the ALP proposed building a three-stage port at Hastings when it was in government. Hastings Liberal MP Neale Burgess said “Labor has abandoned more than 40 years of bipartisan support for the Port of Hastings, deserted the people…
MORE than 300 teachers rallied outside the McCrae office of Education Minister and Nepean MP Martin Dixon on Wednesday. The McCrae Plaza shopping centre car park was turned into a sea of red clothing and banners as teachers and support staff vented their disappointment at the standoff between the teachers’ union and the Baillieu government. Australian Education Union members are targeting state government MPs as part of the “Keep the Promise” campaign, which refers to Premier Ted Baillieu’s claim made before the November 2010 election to make Victorian teachers “the best paid teachers in Australia”. The morning rally was part…
TWO abalone poachers from the peninsula have been given prison sentences for trafficking a commercial quantity of the endangered shellfish. Last Friday in the County Court, Judge Mark Dean jailed Andrew Carpmael, 49, of Rosebud for 18 months with a minimum of nine months. Simon Hillman, of Rye, received a 12-month sentence suspended for two years. Each man pleaded guilty to one charge of trafficking a commercial quantity of abalone. The judge also banned the pair from having commercial abalone equipment, Carpmael for 10 years and Hillman for three. Hillman, a professional diver who works at Peninsula Hot Springs near…
AN independent planning panel has recommended minimum lot sizes of 2000 square metres in Mt Eliza’s Woodland precinct and 1300sqm on street corners. For almost a decade, the shire has been trying to restrict subdivision of about 1600 big blocks in the area bounded by Nepean Hwy, Humphries, Moorooduc and Canadian Bay roads. Since September 2003, it has received many applications to subdivide, but has not had a planning scheme to limit development. Some landowners have taken the shire to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which has refused some plans, but approved others. The issue has divided Woodland residents…
TEN landowners in a section of Bungower Rd, Moorooduc, will share their rural idyll with more than 65 dogs if the shire council approves an application from a veterinarian. The vet is asking the council to approve plans for “Bark Avenue” boarding kennels at 281 Bungower Rd near Coolart Rd. Stage one will have 20 “luxury” kennels and runs for large dogs and eight for small dogs. Stage two will have six kennels and runs for large dogs and 32 for medium dogs. There also will be 14 exercise yards. Other elements of the complex include a cattery, geriatric dog…
DEVILBEND Reserve was officially opened on Saturday, but the battle between environmentalists, government and fishing groups is far from over. Parks Victoria’s newest reserve was opened by Water Minister Peter Walsh, bringing to fruition more than 12 years of planning and negotiation. Now called Devilbend Natural Features Reserve, the 1000-hectare reserve has an entrance gateway, asphalt entrance road, sealed car park, picnic and barbecue facilities, walking tracks and a boardwalk. Controversially, there are two fishing platforms and the 14,600-megalitre reservoir (an Olympic pool holds one megalitre) was stocked with 5000 brown and 5000 rainbow trout of “catchable” size by the…
PEOPLE trying to kill snakes are risking injury, says a Mornington Peninsula professional snake catcher. Barry Goldsmith of Mornington-based Snakes and Wildlife Control has been called out to eight properties in recent weeks where homeowners have killed or attempted to kill a snake using a variety of implements. Four snakes that had been mortally wounded had to be euthanised. Trying to kill a snake was far riskier than leaving it, he said. Snakes are on the move following recent warmer weather with Mr Goldsmith and other snake catchers in the region coming into the busy time of the year. “People…
SOUTHERN Peninsula Rescue Squad came to the aid of a charter yacht tangled in a South Channel beacon tower off Portsea last Saturday. The squad was contacted by water police at about 5.30pm and asked to attend the scene where it arrived at about 6pm. Ten passengers aboard Sorrento Sailing Escape’s 12-metre (40-foot) Beneteau class yacht were transferred to the squad’s rescue boat Southern Peninsula 1. The yacht’s skipper and rescue volunteers then pondered how to disentangle rigging that had been snagged on a sign atop the No 4 marker, which indicates the northern side of the channel. Sorrento-based commercial…
MEMBERS of two influential community groups say fast-tracking the move by South East Water to Frankston could add to the woes of Frankston MP Geoff Shaw. They are targeting Mr Shaw in their 11th hour bid to have the water authority’s headquarters sited away from Kananook Creek and the foreshore. “We agree that Frankston is the ideal location for South East Water HQ, but why was it that the state government demanded this key waterfront site and this site only?” former Kananook Creek Association president Rob Thurley has told The News. “Why were better located, less sensitive sites never considered…
THE new Frankston Council was confronted by a thorny problem at its first meeting in Thursday night – how to save one of the city’s iconic trees. A problem solved 10 years ago has come back to haunt the council with owners of 138 and 138A Cranbourne Rd, Frankston, wanting to remove the 120-year-old Moreton Bay fig tree growing on common property between two homes. The tree was the centre of attention in 2002 when the previous owner of the property wanted to cut it down to build two homes. A public outcry saw the council buy the property and…
TOWNS and suburbs on Port Phillip including Rosebud and McCrae could be submerged by coastal flooding combined with heavy rain events by the end of the century, says an unpublished confidential report. Port Phillip Coastal Adaption Pathways Program studied four bayside areas – Rosebud-McCrae, Mordialloc, Elwood and Southbank as well as a low-lying area in North Melbourne. The existence of the report was revealed after Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors held a private meeting on 24 September. This was after the public gallery was cleared at the end of the final public meeting before the council went into caretaker mode in…
MT Eliza university student Andrew Dixon has a new interest in his busy life – Mornington Peninsula Shire Council. The 25-year-old was perhaps a surprising winner at the council election on Saturday when he grabbed the last of three seats in Briars Ward, the new super ward that takes in the former Mt Eliza, Mornington and Balcombe (Mt Martha) wards. Cr Dixon joins his Briars colleagues Bev Colomb of Mornington and Anne Shaw of Mt Eliza in representing more than 42,000 voters. Many judges thought Leigh Eustace, who had represented Mt Eliza since 2008, would be elected, but the 11-candidate…
RECONSTRUCTION of the retaining wall on Nepean Highway near Olivers Hill in Frankston will take three and a half months. Work started on the $1.4 million wall in February, but it collapsed on Thursday 19 April before it could be finished. Dramatic pictures of the wall collapsing were taken by a man walking his dog. The first wall was built of rocks in steel cages and backfilled with sand. The second attempt is being constructed using steel posts hammered into the ground, horizontal wooden planks and backfilled with lighter material. The lighter material would “reduce the load imposed on it”,…
TULLI the wombat was rescued from his dead mother’s pouch more than a year ago and last weekend was taken back to the bush as a 20kg adult. Tulli and her “sheltermate” Wilma are among the animals rescued each year and taken to Animalia Wildlife Shelter in Frankston. The wombats have been taken to a bush property near Nar Nar Goon and put into a small enclosure prior to being released in a couple of weeks after they have finished building a burrow and getting used to the smells and sounds of their new home range. They are being fed…
THE heavy lift ship MV Blue Marlin steamed through The Heads into Port Phillip on Wednesday morning carrying the newest vessel of the Royal Australian Navy. The hull of LHD Canberra, the first of the navy’s two new amphibious ships, was built at the renowned naval shipyard in Ferrol in northern Spain by Navantia and launched in February 2011. Canberra is a Landing Helicopter Dock ship and will be fitted out by BAE Systems at Williamstown shipyard before going into service in 2014. The hull of her twin, Adelaide, will arrive in Australia in 2014. They are 230 metres long,…