NEWS DESK
MP calls for freeway works to be linked
Scouts, leaders turn out for award winner’s ceremony VENTURER Scout Ally Beagley received a Queen’s Scout Award – the highest Scouting award given to a youth member – late last month. Ally is pictured with cubs, scouts, venturers, rovers and leaders from the Sorrento Sea Scout group at the ceremony at Tootgarook Primary School. District commissioner Tina Bennett said the Queen’s Scout award takes three years to achieve and includes a demonstrated capacity for leadership, initiative, outdoor expeditions, citizenship and service. “The award is quite hard to achieve and requires great organisational skills as well as self-discipline and determination – all during the final years of secondary education,” she said. There are 12 scouting groups across the Mornington Peninsula. Details: call District Commissioner Tina Bennett, 0409 131 489.
Museum afternoon SORRENTO Museum will open its doors at 2pm Friday 1 September to show its collection of photos, objects, documents, research and other treasures. Tea, coffee and light refreshments will be served afterwards. The function will be preceded by a short Nepean Historical Society meeting. Non-members are asked to donate a gold coin, or can join on the day. Sorrento Museum is at 827 Melbourne Rd, Sorrento, visit nepeanhistoricalsociety.asn.au
NEPEAN MP Martin Dixon wants Roads and Road Safety Minister Luke Donnellan build a noise attenuation wall at the same time wire rope barriers are installed along the Mornington Peninsula Freeway. Mr Dixon told state parliament last week he supported the wire rope barriers beside the freeway all the way to Rosebud. “The section of the freeway between Safety Beach and Rosebud has been tested over numerous years, and the whole section of freeway, which has many homes abutting it, exceeds the allowable noise limits for freeways,” he said. “We have run a long campaign to have the noise walls installed along the freeway. VicRoads have said that, for them, the installation of those noise walls is a priority but that they have not received the funds from the government to install them, so the need is clearly demonstrated and is supported by VicRoads.” Mr Dixon conceded the project to install the wire barriers along that section of the freeway would “entail almost total removal of all the vegetation on the sides of the freeway and also on the freeway median”. “A lot of it is past its use-by date,” he said. “Some of it is the wrong sort of vegetation, and it is going to be in the way of the wire barriers. Some of
it is a fire risk.” Removing the vegetation would make noise levels worse, Mr Dixon said. “Unfortunately, what this means is that, with all the trees gone, with all the vegetation gone and with the excess noise having been demonstrated by VicRoads, that this is just going to make that freeway far noisier and destroy any amenity that is left for the locals who live close to that freeway. “Also, economically, I think it is going to be far better to do both projects at the same time rather than digging it up to do one project and then coming back, with all the traffic interruptions over many months, and doing the second project.” Mr Dixon said a section of the freeway was resealed by VicRoads about 12 months ago – with disastrous results: “Some bright spark at VicRoads decided to put the coarsest road surface on that section of freeway, which just infuriated the locals who had been campaigning for noise walls. “What they ended up getting as a road surface was the noisiest possible. In fact, VicRoads in the end actually said, ‘Yes, we’ve made a mistake there’. They had to come back six months later and resurface that whole section of the road, so a whole lot of money has been spent there.”
Pop-up pops down over permit Stephen Taylor steve@mpnews.com.au THE Oasis Pop-Up Kitchen in Bentons Rd, Mt Martha, has been forced to close over an “issue relating to the planning permit”. The kitchen – which “popped up” three months ago in its temporary home while a full-size Oasis bakery is built on 1.6 hectares on Nepean Highway, Mornington – was to close yesterday (Monday 21 August).
Mornington Peninsula Shire’s executive manager planning services David Bergin said the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal had ruled on 4 August that “the use of the land must stop”. He said council was powerless to alter the decision”. Oasis manager Jess Makool said she had endured a fractious meeting with shire officers over another matter in early June and, two weeks later, received a directive to attend VCAT over not having a planning permit. “Someone was unhappy with us,”
she said. “I am not sure whether we had a planning permit in the first place, but they seem to have ignored the fact that [a food premises] was here for 20 years before we came along.” Ms Makool said a factor in the dispute may be that the Bentons Rd site was not commercially zoned like their former pop-up site on Nepean Highway, near Mornington-Tyabb Rd. Works are due to start there soon on a “multipurpose landmark” with restaurant, cafe, food market, function room,
THE RYE HOTEL
gardens and a petting zoo. Since the VCAT ruling, Oasis has applied for a planning permit – which may take up to three months to obtain – and its 20 staff remain in limbo. “We have been busy looking for new sites and have a meeting at one on Monday which is only about a minute away,” Ms Makool said. “It looks promising.” She said the customer support her team had received had made them feel “especially welcome” on the peninsula. “To be honest, the whole issue in
some ways has been a good thing.” Mr Bergin said the shire “regrets the strain that the operator’s failure to comply with legislation may have put on the business and its employees and hopes that they can re-open soon for their customers and staff members”. He said the council had liaised with Oasis over the permit issue since early June. “Despite several verbal and written requests, the occupiers failed to stop using the site for a cafe/restaurant,” Mr Bergin said.
2415 Point Nepean Road, Rye Beach www.ryehotel.com.au | 5985 2277 Southern Peninsula News 22 August 2017
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