>Massive truck traffic increase set off concerns of Town, residents, Pg 5 > Find out what’s going on, check Around Town Pg. 4 > Beamsville Lions ready for Soap Box Derby Pg. 7 > Property taxes concern reader Pg. 10 Thursday, August 10, 2017 Vol. 6 Issue 14
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Are the days of Grimsby’s Hunter Road woodlot numbered? Next week’s Public Works Committee meeting will tell the tale. Ron Lane - Photo
Woodlot’s survival in Public Works’ hands By Mike Williscraft NewsNow The long-debated issue of survival for the old growth Irish woodlot on Hunter Road rises, yet again, at next Wednesday’s Grimsby Public Works Committee meeting. The matter has been thought decided and dead in favour of keeping the “most signifi-
cant woodlot on the Lake Ontario Plain in Niagara” from being split by a Livingston Avenue extension, says environmentalist Bruce MacKenzie. When the Greenbelt Review was rolled out this spring and all lands remained frozen, woodlot proponents believed that was the end of the discussion.
Yet, when a group of residents who have been watching the matter for years attended an open house for Niagara Region’s Transportation Master Plan, they were shocked to not only see the extension still up for consideration, but noted that it was built into the proposed maps used at the open
house as a completed project. MacKenzie said regional officials were asked about this and he was told by senior staff the road was to go ahead. “This was seen as a back-door attempt by the Region to get the extension approved before any EA took place,” said MacKen-
zie. “The citizens of Grimsby were not told that this was being introduced into the Master Plan. It was being kept quiet.” With this new information, a delegation of proponents to save the woodlot attended the Region’s May 17 Transportation Steering Committee meeting
with a 1,000-plus signature petition. Reg. Coun. Tony Quirk also spoke in favour of deleting the extension from the Master Plan. This precipitated the committee voting unanimously to remove the Livingston extension from the Master Plan. The decision needed to be confirmed by See PLAN, Page 3