A CCC meeting was held on 9th March, attended by new members, including Bronwyn White , Chantal Parslow-Redman and James Moore representing BHSA. Peter Rees, Neil and Margarete, Paul LeMottee, Prue McGee and Robert Adams were the other community representatives

For the benefit of the new members, a brief tour of the quarry was conducted in vehicles. The main stops were the rock face where a blast was being prepared, and the new bund wall which is visible from Clarence Town Road near the electricity sub station. The old crushing equipment was not operating and was given a wide berth. I wonder why!

The CCC meeting was held in the old farm house at 888 Clarence Town Rd. Hanson has bought the property to add to the buffer zone around the Quarry.

All the community representatives were extremely disappointed with the meeting. This was expected to be the last CCC before Hanson completes their response to submissions, and it will be as Hanson advised that they expect to lodge it during April. We had asked for an agenda item where Hanson would discuss what they would change or offer to address the concerns in the opposing submissions.

This is what we asked for before the meeting:

In the light of the DPE’s letter to Hanson including the direction as follows:

“ The Department requests that Hanson provide a revised SIA which, at a minimum: a) responds to the potential social impacts of the project, and either proposes adequate mitigation measures or justification as to why no mitigation is warranted. Particular consideration should be given to the various measures put forward by the Brandy Hill & Seaham Action Group (e.g. restricted production and operating hours, construction of shared pathways and road safety measures). Proposed responses should follow the hierarchy of avoid, minimise and mitigate. “

We would like added to the agenda of the next meeting, a discussion of mitigation measures in the BHSAG submission. This is to ensure that Hanson understands the intent of those measures, and it will be an opportunity for Hanson to provide feedback on those measures or alternative measures that Hanson might be considering in its “Response to submissions “.

When we got to the agenda item titled “Response to submissions “, the Consultant from Key Insights spoke briefly about the difficulty in reconciling the needs of the quarry with the concerns raised, but offered no compromises. The consultant from RW Corkery then spoke about what they were doing to address the technical deficiencies identified in the noise, dust and other environmental sections of the EIS, and gave an overview of the project.

Apart from clarifying that due to the noise regulations, there would be a limit on overnight truck movements, no compromises or mitigation measures were presented that in any way addressed the communities concerns.

24/7, the high number of daily truck movements and the lack of safety infrastructure  along Brandy Hill Drive for pedestrians, cyclists and school buses were not addressed in any way whatsoever.

After 4 years of community “consultation “ and the wide support BHSA has had for limitations to be applied to the proposal and for Hanson to offer improvements to the transport corridor, Hanson have offered no compromises and no infrastructure for safety or amenity.

Perhaps Hanson will offer something in the “Statement of commitments “ that is part of their response, but we are not expecting anything based on the CCC meeting.

We expect that here’s will be a Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) meeting where BHSA will have another opportunity to present our case. We can only hope that the Department of Planning and the PAC will be more sympathetic than Hanson.

And on the Martins Creek Quarry front, a CCC meeting is being planned. Daracon has also engaged a consultant to help them with the response to submissions. Word has been received that the judgement on the DSC V Daracon court case is expected during April.

Neil and Margarete