Wanless Recycling Park: $50 million precinct and landfill to go to public hearing before approval is given by Ipswich City Council

The proposed waste precinct on the site of an old coal mine is predicted to create up to 300 jobs during construction and employ about 50 if it becomes operational.

Wanless CEO Dean Wanless is seeking Ipswich City Council approval to build a new $50 million facility in Ebenezer.

Plans for a proposed new $50 million waste facility on the site of a former coal mine will be referred to an independent panel before a final decision is made by Ipswich City Council, with members of the public able to voice their concerns directly in a first for Queensland councils.

Waste company Wanless submitted a development application to the council in December 2019 for a new landfill and recycling centre on a 604 hectare site at Ebenezer.

The proposed Wanless Recycling Park is predicted to create up to 300 jobs during construction and employ about 50 if it becomes operational.

Plans for the Wanless Recycling Park proposed for Ipswich.

During the public notification period held last year, a total of 60 properly made submissions were received outlining concerns about the proposal.

These included submissions by the owner of the nearby Queensland Raceway and another local waste operation.

Wanless says it has received state government approval for the project but it has yet to get the green tick from the council.

Once built, the facility will take about five years to operate at capacity.

Wanless said at capacity the facility will recycle more than 300,000 tonnes of waste a year that is currently going to landfill in Ipswich.

“(Wanless Recycling Park) is an enterprising organisation with an aim to construct and operate a world class resource recovery facility to address emerging issues in the southeast Queensland waste industry,” the original application noted.

“WRP have identified an opportunity for an integrated facility that focuses on recovery and reuse, rather than generic landfilling.

“WRP is seeking to become a leader in SEQ’s resource recovery and biofutures industry.

“While waste reuse, recycling and biofuture industries are often able to utilise a significant portion of incoming waste streams, all facilities will have a portion of residual waste that must be disposed of through landfilling.

Wanless CEO Dean Wanless.

“The voids within the Project site provide a unique asset that can be utilised to facilitate commercial industrial operations in the emerging Ebenezer/Willowbank/Jeebropilly area, while reducing the necessity for greenfield landfilling operations.”

Mining on the site stopped in 2002 due to a fall in market demand.

Ti Tree Bioenergy, which runs its own facility on 212 hectares at Willowbank, said in a submission there is “insufficient detail” provided in Wanless’ application.

“Ti Tree Bioenergy has significant concerns that the applicant will develop the landfill component(s) of the development without or prior to full development of the Resource Recovery Facility (RRF) – which would be inconsistent with how the proposed development has been presented in the development application and to the public,” its submission noted.

“There is no detail of how the multiple components of the development are intended to be staged.”

Queensland Raceways CEO John Tetley wrote he wasn’t opposed to the development itself but about the “increased reliance and activities for the immediate area on waste management”.

Wanless boss Dean Wanless with father Ron.

“The original community engagement was based on no landfill or putrescible waste being brought to the site,” he wrote.

“Rather the advice was this was to be a modern recycle and resource recovery centre.

“It is unclear when the communicated focus of a proposal based on a focus of recover, reuse, and recycle was changed to include a major land fill taking additional forms of waste streams.”

Mr Tetley also raised concerns about increased heavy vehicle traffic and the impact on his precinct’s “image” with a new waste facility nearby.

“The proposed access arrangements will have a major and costly impact on the internal configuration of QR,” he wrote.

The application will be the first to be referred to the council’s Independent Decision Review Panel for public hearing, which will be held on August 19.

Acting CEO Sonia Cooper said she believed this process was the first of its kind for Queensland councils.

The panel was established in 2019 to deal with sensitive development applications and to review recommendations made by council planning officers.

The site of the proposed Wanless Recycling Park.

The panel has been used twice before for applications the council lodged itself but neither required a public hearing.

“Council has successfully used the IDRP process on two previous occasions,” Ms Cooper said.

“For this application, we are taking it to the next level with our first public hearing on a sensitive development.

“This process ensures complete transparency, with an open and accountable procedure.

“The public hearing will be open to the applicants of the development application and members of the community who made a submission during the public notification period.

“They will be able to address the IDRP directly with their views on the application and council’s recommendations.

“Council has selected two experts to assist in this matter, a town planner who will chair the IDRP and a traffic engineer. Both are independent to council.

“Once the panel has made its independent recommendations, these go to full council for consideration alongside those of council planning officers for the final decision on the application.”

The hearing will be held at the council’s administration building in the Nicholas Street Precinct.

“Wanless welcomes the opportunity to further explain our proposal to build an innovative recycling and resource recovery precinct and why we have particularly chosen to invest in Ipswich,” CEO Dean Wanless said.

“One of the major benefits of this proposal is that there will be in excess of 50 full-time permanent jobs created and hundreds of jobs during construction.”

Read more stories by Lachlan McIvor here.