25 April 2017

Page 1

Southern Peninsula

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Tuesday 25 April 2017

5973 6424 or email: team@mpnews.com.au www.mpnews.com.au

Ferry company seeks terminal change at Sorrento

THE view of the pier at Sorrento will change if plans form a twostorey ferry terminal are approved.

MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire is expected to approve changes to its planning scheme to allow a two-storey ferry terminal to be built at Sorrento. The terminal is part of a $30 million proposal by Searoad Ferries to extend and update buildings and car parks at both Sorrento and Queenscliff. Under present zonings the transport terminal at Sorrento should be run by Parks Victoria, but the shire is likely to agree to amend the planning scheme and override the prohibition. The proposed terminal will be 9.5 metres high and include a cafe, shop, souvenir shop, “Museum at the Bay” and offices for the ferry operator. The plan also includes a new ticketing building and a larger staff car park. The terminal will have a retractable boarding gantry for passengers to board the ferry directly from the building. The two ferries - which operate hourly 7am-6pm daily - each year, carry 1.5 million passengers between Sorrento and Queenscliff. The service is regarded as a vital road link between the Mornington and Bellarine peninsulas and an integral part of tourism infrastructure. Councillors will be asked to approve plans for the new Sorrento terminal at tomorrow’s public meeting (Wednesday 26 April). Keith Platt

Sports club to fight rent rise Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au THE Hastings Cricket and Football Social Club is contesting plans by Mornington Peninsula Shire to increase its rent by more than 900 per cent. The club says it “cannot be a signatory” to the proposed lease as it is “a contradiction of the Gambling Act (2003)”. Councillors last month agreed to increase the annual rent for the club’s Marine Pde, Hastings, premises which also houses gaming machines run by The Hastings Club - from $4000 to $42,234 for the first year of a new

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21-year lease (“Rent rise tied to pokies”, The News 11/4/17). The club will then face $5000 a year increases for two years with reviews every five years. The club has written to the shire saying it believes a lease which is tied to gaming revenues contravenes the Gambling Regulations Act (2003). “Is it the intention of [the shire] to knowingly contravene the [act]?” The Hastings Club president Peter Lewis stated in a letter to the shire property operations leader Greg Collins. “Either way, it would be amoral of us to consider agreeing to the ‘offer’ or alternatively, entering into a lease

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agreement with [the shire] under these conditions.” The club is resisting signing the lease despite the shire’s property and strategy manager Yasmin Woods having said “all legislation” had been taken into account when assessing the club’s rent. She said Kingston and Knight Accountants had reviewed the club’s financial statements and audited its community benefit contributions. Mr Lewis, in his 20 April letter to Mr Collins, states that the club has been “denied the opportunity for negotiation and excluded from representation”. He also said Cr Kate Roper had used “misinformation” about the club hav-

ing $2 million profits in an email defending the proposed rent rise. Cr Roper, in an email seen by The News, said she had tried to have the rent “increased very gradually”. She said there had been a “very antigambling feeling” among councillors and “none of them wanted to give the club any discount”. Cr Roper said the council’s decision – “which was not explained properly in the newspaper” – provided for rent over $10,000 to be spent on the club’s sports grounds and community groups in the Hastings area. As the only sporting club to have gaming machines on the peninsula

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Hastings could not be compared to other clubs which were not paying “commercial” rents. “According to many observers it was a stunning win to get what I did for [the club] although it was more dramatic for the newspaper to go with such a negative slant,” Cr Roper stated. The club’s general manager Michael Horton describes Cr Roper’s claim of having had a “stunning win” as “complete bollocks”. “We have always wanted distribution of our rent to remain in the Hastings community; that’s always been our argument,” Mr Horton stated. Continued Page 11

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25 April 2017 by Mornington Peninsula News Group - Issuu