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Bay Trail safety report considered KINGSTON Council has agreed to order a report into the safety of Bay Trail works. On 24 February council voted to “prepare a report (...) detailing the number and nature of safety related incidents that have occurred during the construction phase of the Baytrail. The report should include matters that relate to safe work practices and road safety and should detail the responses and remedies that have taken place as a result.” The report may not proceed though, with three councillors moving to rescind the motion. The original proposal was narrowly approved by
REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Peter McCullough, Stuart McCullough, Craig MacKenzie, Ben Triandafillou ADDRESS: Mornington Peninsula News Group PO Box 588 Hastings 3915 Email: team@baysidenews.com.au Web: baysidenews.com.au
councillors, although two were absent. The controversial Bay Trail project will link a shared pedestrian and cyclist off-road path between Mentone and Mordialloc. Bay Trail work was completed between Charman Road and Naples Road, Mentone in 2015. Works between Naples Road and Rennison Street in Parkdale are ongoing. Kingston Council city assets and environment general manager Bridget Draper said “construction of stage two of the long awaited Bay Trail from Mentone to Rennison Street is well underway and currently ahead of schedule. The stage two works are due
for completion in June but if conditions remain favourable, the project may be completed ahead of schedule.” “Stage three of the Bay Trail, from Rennison Street to Mordialloc, will be advertised for tender soon. It’s hoped works can begin on this final stage of the Bay Trail in July/August and be completed by late 2020,” she said. The contract for the construction of the project between Naples Road in Mentone and Rennison Street in Parkdale was handed to CDN Constructors Pty Ltd in May last year for a lump sum of a little over $5.1 million. Brodie Cowburn
BAY Trail works in Parkdale last year. Picture: Gary Sissons
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PO Box 588, Hastings 3915 or email communityevents@mpnews.com.au PAGE 6
Frankston Times
10 March 2020
‘Emergency’ issues may impact port MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire’s declaration of a “climate emergency” may put it on a collision course with both state and federal governments over the Port of Hastings. Two significant moves made by the shire last month could lead to it opposing hydrogen gas produced in the Latrobe Valley and opposing a container port because of potential environmental, social and economic impacts on Hastings. A brown coal-to-hydrogen scheme involves a plant now being built at AGL’s Loy Yang power station site and a hydrogen liquefication and loading terminal in Bayview Road, Hastings. The project consortium is led by Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Hydrogen Engineering Australia and has received $50 million each from the state and federal governments. The shire has demanded a full environmental assessment and that environmental impacts of the hydrogen project be known before any decision is made beyond the initial test stage. The project has been criticised because it will see Australia left to deal with the CO2 emissions resulting from the process while Japan gets the full benefit of “clean” hydrogen fuel. A drilling rig is testing the seabed about eight kilometres off the Ninety Mile Beach for its suitability for storing CO2 from the hydrogen process. The state and federal governments have been reported as already contributing $150m to the tests being carried out by CarboNet with a view to the undergropund storage being part of the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain project. Environment groups say there are other ways to produce hydrogen that do not involve releasing CO2 stored in brown coal but following those production methods would not provide jobs in the Latrobe Valley or open up a new way to exploit one of Victoria’s natural resources. The mayor, Cr Sam Hearn told The Times that
making hydrogen from brown coal was “not good” unless its proponents could “tick off all environmental concerns”. He said politicians “need to think 50 years ahead” instead of initiating new fossil fuel projects. In another move potentially affecting state and federal governments, the shire has ordered its officers to prepare a report for next month (April) “detailing the environmental effects of any container port or any other port development at Hastings”. The councillors want the report to “explain the business case used by council in its past supporting a Hastings container port”. The state government back flipped on its earlier plans for a container port at Hastings after receiving a May 2017 recommendation from Infrastructure Victoria that it instead be built at Bay West, in Port Phillip. At that stage, Infrastructure Victoria based it recommendations against Hastings, in part, on such predicted environmental impacts as loss of seagrass meadows; impacts on fish, saltmarsh (potential habitat for the orange bellied parrot) and mangroves; and potential loss of habitat for shorebirds. Cr David Gill, who moved at council’s 17 February Planning Services Committee meeting that the shire officers prepare a report, said Frankston Council had already changed its mind and withdrawn support for a container port at Hastings. The use of thousands of hectares of land from Stony Point to north of Hastings, has virtually been quarantined for “port related purposes” since the 1960s when Western Port was flagged as the site for Victoria’s second major port. Keith Platt