Dear Sir, 

Objection to Planning Application No. P992463: Part Removal of Sand Dune at Blairgowrie 

Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc. objects to the amended Planning Application No. P992463 for the above proposed works, which is to be considered by the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council. 

Proposal:  The application is for proposed vegetation and sand removal from some 100 m² plan area of a sand dune that is of great landscape importance. It entails the killing of a centuries-old Moonah tree (Melaleuca lanceolata), and associated construction of a 2 metre high ‘textured’ concrete retaining wall against that distinctive and attractive remnant vegetated sand dune on Crown land at the south-eastern corner of St Johns Wood Road and Point Nepean Road, Blairgowrie. It also includes the proposed construction of a concrete footpath adjacent to Point Nepean Road between St Johns Wood Road and Revell Road (Melway 167G1). 

Major Concerns:  The stable vegetated dune is a significant geomorphological and scenic component of one of the significant remaining natural features of the Port Phillip coastline. It is the western-most remaining part of a unique 3 km stretch of Point Nepean Road between White Cliffs and St Johns Wood Road where the Crown land foreshore reserve is on the inland side of the road and affords users of the road a most pleasing appreciation on both sides of the road, free of the general sight of roadside development, of what the coastal vegetation and landscape was like before the otherwise ubiquitous residential subdivision right along the coastal road from Melbourne to Portsea. There is no remotely similar feature anywhere else on the Mornington Peninsula coast of Port Phillip. Sadly, the next largest example of such a feature on the entire Port Phillip coastline is the 500 m landside stretch of Coastal Banksia habitat alongside Beach Road between Reserve and Haydens Roads, Beaumaris. 

Planning Issues:  This prominent sand dune on public land and its associated indigenous vegetation is very near the coast of Port Phillip in an area of Port Phillip coastline of widely acknowledged beauty and natural significance and must come within the protection of those strategies and policies in the planning scheme that appear to give protection to such irreplaceable community assets. 

Photograph:  I include below an aerial photograph [2H13], which shows the sand dune at issue here. The photograph was taken on the late afternoon of Saturday 30th May 1998 from a height of some 150 m over Port Phillip. The photograph shows how thickly vegetated the threatened sand dune is, how close it is to the shore of Port Phillip, and how it is very much a part of the local coastal landform. 

Feeble Rationale for Proposal:  The proposal appears to have been put forward to remedy alleged inadequate sight lines for traffic approaching the intersection. That could be remedied without intrusion into an important remnant natural landscape feature by shifting the lanes that contact Point Nepean Road at an acute angle further west, moving them somewhat into the already modified open land to the west, thereby also making the angle of contact of St John’s Wood Road less non-standard, as it would make it closer to a right angle. 

The further ingredient of a proposal to construct a footpath between the sand dune and Point Nepean Road would seem to be readily answered by suggesting that its construction on the other side of the dune, away from busy Point Nepean Road with its fast moving traffic right alongside the proposed footpath, would be a safer, more pleasant, and more environmentally acceptable alternative for all concerned. 

Subsidiary motives for the proposal appear to be related to interests connected with the nearby shops seeking to make them more conspicuous, which is not necessarily in the public interest in a scenic area. 

Yours sincerely, 
 
 

Geoffrey Goode 
President 
Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc. 
 
 

cc.  Ms Sherryl Garbutt MLA, Minister for Environment and Conservation