Alliance Timber recommissions Dartmoor Mill in the heart of the Green Triangle

Thirteen years after a mill closure decimated a tiny border town, the coronavirus pandemic and Chinese trade tensions have brought it back to life.

A Green Triangle timber mill is heaving back to life 13 years after its closure devastated a tiny border town.

It was the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Chinese trade war’s impact on the forestry industry that have revived the Dartmoor Mill.

Alliance Timber operations manager Zach Westwick said Victoria’s lockdowns led the business to shut down its Terang operation choosing to centralise in Dartmoor while trade tensions had allowed it to secure more timber contracts.

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“As funny as it sounds, COVID has been a bit of a blessing in disguise as much as a headache it’s been having your staff across the border,” he said.

“Because of China putting a stop to export, it’s been made a lot more timber available locally, which is brilliant for us.”

Thirty kilometres from the South Australian border, the mill produces CCA treated posts used in vineyards and orchards and for fencing with half of its workers travelling from Mount Gambier.

What was once the town’s major employer, the mill shut down in 2008 with 160 people losing their jobs, according to Mr Westwick.

“As you can imagine for the town the size of Dartmoor, that just decimated it,” he said.

“Dartmoor was a mill town, everything in the town was built around the mill.”

The site sat vacant for a decade until it was bought by Alliance Timber and reopened with eight employees to peel timber before it was transported to Terang.

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Now the mill’s treatment plant has been recommissioned growing the workforce to 25.

“As of February this year, we’re recommissioned the treatment plant, which the for past a 18 months has been our number one focus,” Mr Westwick said.

“We want to get Dartmoor thriving again.

“From Kim and Brook in the shop to Andrew and Jason in the pub and even the footy club … the community has been great, they’ve really got behind us.

“It’s more people at the pub on a Friday night, it could be more land purchased and built on around town, it’s more people in the general store and it means more numbers at footy lining up on a Saturday morning.”

While the pandemic presented the perfect lull to move to the heart of the Green Triangle, the Dartmoor site wasn’t exactly ready.

Mr Westwick said everything – from the toastie machine in the office to the peeler – ran off generators until last April.

“If I turned the heater on in the office, the computer would shut down because I’d overloaded the generator,” he said.

Alliance Timber Group operations manager Zac Westwick at the newly recommissioned Dartmoor Mill. Picture: Jessica Ball

“Last year we got that up and running and that was a big cost but vital.”

The next stage of the expansion is to add steaming cylinders which will create up to 10 more jobs and up production.

“The whole plan with the steaming side of business to speed up the process and have a quicker turnover of product,” he said.

“Without the streamers you might wait six months through winter for a post to dry out and treat, with the steaming cylinders that speeds up to two weeks.”