General News
11 August, 2022
Small community sessions planned for controversial project
ONLY 20 people will be able to attend upcoming community sessions for the Western Renewable Link Project, with organisers citing COVID concerns.
ONLY 20 people will be able to attend upcoming community sessions for the Western Renewable Link Project, with organisers citing COVID concerns.
Pyrenees landowners set to be affected by the project (formerly the Western Victorian Transmission Network Project) have written to the project team expressing frustration over the limited capacity to discuss the controversial project, which attracted hundreds of protestors in Ballarat last month.
A drop-in session is scheduled to be held in Waubra on Monday 22 August, with the plan for landowners and WRLP officials to discuss issues over dinner.
While locals have been demanding more transparency and interaction with the project team throughout the process, many do not see this approach as productive.
One resident responded to the invitation put out last week asking ‘how a dinner for 20 people counts as community discussion, when significantly more than 20 people and families are impacted by the project in each area in which you are holding these dinners?’
The WRLP team hopes these intimate sessions will allow for better interaction to “shape the next phase of engagement as well as discuss general issues of concern regarding the project” by creating a comfortable space for locals.
“Dinners will be held for each section of the proposed route and community members are invited to participate,” the community invitation says.
“Dinners will be limited to 20 participants to manage health and wellbeing in the current COVID environment and allow everyone an equal chance to contribute.”
The project team is open to hosting additional dinner discussions in Waubra should there be significant interest from the community in this first round.
While the project team says it will “be hosting [its] next round of community information drop-in sessions” in addition to these dinners, Waubra has been left out, with the only larger-scale sessions scheduled located in Brown Hill, Toolern Vale and Joel Joel.
There will also be an online information session on 8 September.
The project’s Environmental Effects Statement will be submitted by the end of the year and be open for public viewing in early 2023.
The project consists of a 190km high-voltage electricity transmission line which will carry renewable energy from Bulgana in Western Victoria to Sydenham in Melbourne’s north-west.
Atop the list of concerns expressed by Pyrenees landowners is AusNet’s refusal to use underground transmission lines and the increased fire risk the proposed overhead towers pose.
Read More: Waubra