Southern Peninsula
Features inside FOOD AND ENTERTAINMENT PAGES 27–29 CLASSIFIEDS PAGES 30–31 SOUTHERN PENINSULA SCOREBOARD PAGES 32–33
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Tuesday 11 February 2014
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Beyond the pale AN out-of-control car smashed through the fence of a Rosebud property last Sunday night, rolling multiple times across the length of the garden before smashing into a parked car and landing just metres from the front of the house. The Holden sedan, believed to be travelling in excess of 100km/h, failed to negotiate a bend on Elizabeth Drive near the corner of Rosebud Ave shortly after 8pm. The car narrowly missed a power pole after leaving the road and becoming airborne, before crashing through the property on the opposite side of the road. The impact sent fence palings flying and destroyed a number of fruit trees as the vehicle tumbled more than 30 metres, coming to rest on its wheels just short of the brick home’s front door. Homeowners Coral and Blair Miller had been enjoying a quiet Sunday evening with their children before the sound of the crash sent them scurrying outside to survey the destruction. Police said the driver, who was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries, is likely to face a range of charges. Picture: Yanni. Inset: Gary Sissons
Abandon SPA: coast report By Mike Hast THE Southern Peninsula Aquatic Centre (SPA) should not be built on the coastal reserve at Rosebud, says a new report commissioned by the Victorian National Parks Association. The Coast is Unclear: an uncertain future for nature along the Victorian coast says Victorians are loving the state’s coastline to death, and better planning policies are needed to avoid the “impacts of a new wave of development washing over the state’s 2000-kilometre coastline”. Building SPA on the foreshore was approved by a narrow majority of shire
councillors in December but has generated widespread opposition. The report states Mornington Peninsula Shire’s proposal for the aquatic centre “highlights the risk of municipalities managing coastal Crown land reserves when they are also promoting major development of the reserve and adjoining land”. “This mirrors the historic problems with committees of management developing revenue-generating uses such as camping grounds and caravan parks at the expense of coastal nature. “It also points to the need to review the concepts of activity nodes and net community benefit contained within
the Victorian coastal strategy 2008.” The report – the first of its kind on coastal planning and management issues along the state’s entire coastline – proposes a 100-metre buffer zone on private land abutting coastal reserves, streams, river banks and estuaries. Development would be banned in the buffer zone, boundaries between public and private land would be fenced off, and landowners would get financial help for vegetation restoration. The recommendation is among dozens in the 268-page report, commissioned by VNPA and written by veteran marine and coastal environment consultant Chris Smyth.
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port and industrial development driven by rapid population growth were eroding “what we love about our coasts”, he said. It also calls for Western Port’s coastline to be protected and the proposed Port of Hastings expansion abandoned. Studies for the proposed port should be stopped and the state government should be “consolidating the ports of Melbourne, Geelong and Portland”. Successive Victorian governments have contributed to the creation of a complex, disintegrated and ineffective coastal planning and management framework that has been unable to stop the squeeze on coastal nature.
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“Victorians love their rugged coastlines and seaside towns, but the very landscapes that make summer holidays in the state so special are being transformed by development encouraged and approved by successive state governments,’’ VNPA spokesman Simon Branigan said. The report calls for new and expanded state parks, greater protection for Western Port and Port Phillip, and an overhaul of the ad hoc way authorities manage the coast. Mr Branigan said comprehensive policies were needed from all political parties ahead of November’s election. Climate change and coastal, urban,
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