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Channel
Deepening: The Environment Effects Statement for this is now
being considered by an Independent Panel to which, in August, Port Phillip
Conservation Council Inc. made a written submission, and to which, in
December, I shall make, on behalf of PPCC Inc, an oral
submission. In March, I was a
speaker, on behalf of PPCC Inc, at the Blue Wedges Coalition public
meeting on the Channel Deepening proposal in the Lower
Melbourne Town Hall.
The September meeting of the PPCC Inc. Committee of Management resolved to
donate $350.00 to the Blue Wedges
Coalition for the cost of its barrister at the Panel's hearings.
Marina
Proposals: The relentless drive for marinas at Frankston,
Brighton,
and Safety
Beach has continued, with varying results at each place:
- Frankston Council has
formally called for expressions of interest in its proposal, broached in
1997, for a marina that would entail massive filling of the Bay, and
buildings etc, in front of the Oliver's Hill cliff. The sea and coast
here will not be protected from that marina until the misconceived
designation, in the Victorian Coastal Strategy, of Frankston as a Safe
Boat Harbour
site is revoked, but no moves are being made for that.
- Royal
Brighton Yacht Club's long-term plans sent to Bayside Council revealed
that ambitions to double the number of berths are still in force.
- Safety
Beach inland marina is
expanding quickly. It has caused local unrest, with flooding and
unauthorized discharges of water into Port Phillip. PPCC Inc's appeal to
VCAT against massive dumping of spoil from excavations there further
inland along Brokil Creek failed.
- Parks
Victoria's plan for a $20 million "Queenscliff Harbour
Redevelopment" involving slipways, fuelling berths, and 80
megalitres of sand dredging per year, will face a harder and fairer
electoral test in November as Queenscliffe Borough municipal polls will
operate on a proportional
representation basis, as opposed to the egregious 2001 "winner-take-all"
polls that elected a wholly development-oriented Council.
The Central Coastal Board has employed a consultant to develop a
Coastal Action Plan on Boating to which PPCC Inc. has submitted preliminary
comments. Moves for marinas at the former Prince's Pier, Port Melbourne; and
at Werribee, just north of the Werribee
River, are underway. The Port
Bellarine Tourist Resort Act 1981 is still in force.
Other Mornington Peninsula
Shire Matters: It appears that this Council, in collaboration with
the State Government, is attempting to circumvent the principle declared by
VCAT in 2003 that the Victorian Coastal Strategy precludes skateboard ramps
on foreshore reserves, as they are now arranging for the State to be a ramp
proponent at Rosebud. PPCC Inc. has endorsed a MEAFEC Inc. proposal for a
Coastal Reserve at Mt Eliza.
Other Frankston City Matters: PPCC Inc. has
written to Frankston Council and the Minister for the Environment about the
rebuilding of the Seaford Life Saving Club, and
excessive development underway at the Frankston Pier
forecourt.
Other Bayside City Matters: PPCC Inc. has written
to the Minister for the Environment advocating that beach
renourishment be added in front of the boulder wall proposed along the
rapidly eroding cliff near Royal Avenue.
The missing link in the Bayside Bicycle Road,
which ought to be built on the narrower than usual road reserve at Beaumaris
by halving the number of car lanes, remains of concern. Bayside
City Council has decided to impose
its bicycle road waterfront structure at Brighton.
Brighton Foreshore Preservation Association Inc. will scrutinize that
closely.
Other Matters: Disposal of Defence land at Portsea
is still contentious and retrograde. The President of PPCC Inc. from 1976-77,
Julian Abrahams, died in August, but our founding President and Life
Governor, John
Iggulden, who, at 87, is now my only surving predecessor, is still
with us. We now have support for our planned social cruise on the Enterprize
replica from Williamstown in April 2005.
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