By Adam Carey
A waste transfer station in Melbourne’s south-east that would have processed hundreds of thousands of tonnes of household rubbish every year has been rejected by Victoria’s environmental watchdog because it is too close to homes and would have presented a health risk to residents.
The refusal of Veolia’s application is a significant win for Hampton Park residents, some of whom live just 250 metres from the facility, which currently operates as a tip.
Veolia’s Hallam Road landfill is situated close to homes. The company is alleged to have failed to safely manage methane gas emissions.Credit: Eddie Jim
The community was previously told the site would be rehabilitated into parkland once the current landfill is full, but instead faced the prospect of living near a waste transfer station for decades.
The Environment Protection Authority said the proposed waste transfer station presented “unacceptable risk to human health … primarily from odour and noise emissions”.
“Due to the close proximity of the proposed waste transfer station to residential homes and other sensitive receptors, we have determined these risks cannot be reduced to acceptable levels,” the authority’s head of permissioning, Angela Grozos, said.
Global waste giant Veolia recently took the EPA to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in an attempt to bring forward a decision, and could appeal the refusal. A four-day hearing is scheduled in August.
Long-term plans to convert the Hampton Park site into a park were scrapped after the state government designated it an industrial site of state significance. The decision could disrupt state-level plans to convert rubbish to energy.
The waste transfer station was key to local government plans to dispose of kerbside rubbish. More than 10 eastern suburbs councils had agreed to direct their kerbside rubbish to the facility for the next 25 years and be incinerated and converted to energy at a separate plant in the Latrobe Valley.
Scott Watson, president of the Lynbrook Residents Association, said the decision vindicated a lengthy grassroots campaign against the waste transfer station.
“All I can say is common sense seems to have prevailed. It has never made sense to build a facility so close to communities and to homes,” he said.
Lynbrook Residents Association President Scott Watson at the Veolia Hampton Park Hill landfill site in outer Melbourne.Credit: Penny Stephens
Watson said the City of Casey’s recently elected council had supported the community campaign against the station, unlike the council administrators who served between 2020 and 2024, and approved Veolia’s planning application just days before completing their four-year terms in November.
More than 1000 homes stand within the EPA’s 500-metre buffer zone for the landfill and proposed waste transfer station.
Casey Residents and Ratepayers Association vice-president Anthony Tassone said the decision “shows people power works”.
“This was the only sensible conclusion the EPA could reach based on the scientific evidence, the appalling compliance record of Veolia at Hampton Park Hill and in the interests of public health and protection of the environment,” he said.
“Local residents can breathe a sigh of relief that this ridiculous proposal so close to people’s homes isn’t proceeding, as they’ve had to battle poor odour management from the landfill for many years.”
The EPA is separately pursuing Veolia in the Supreme Court, alleging it has allowed methane gas emissions at the Hampton Park landfill to exceed safe levels on 22 occasions.
City of Casey Mayor Stefan Koomen said the EPA’s decision gave “much-needed clarity on the status of the proposed waste transfer station for our residents”.
“Council acknowledges the significance of the decision made today and the comprehensive work undertaken by the EPA in relation to the assessment of the development licence application,” Koomen said.
Veolia has been contacted for comment.
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