Bentley Quarry: Residents rally against expansion plans

Angry residents are in for the long haul as they fight to sink expansion plans for a hard rock quarry near Lismore. They outlined their fears to a high level planning panel.

The final determination for the development of a ‘mega-quarry’ in Bentley has been postponed for three months after community blowback.

Residents who would be affected by the quarry expressed their fury to a Northern Rivers Planning Panel on Wednesday (August 25) after Richmond Valley Council’s seeming dismissal of concerns from the community during the original development application process.

Edwina Lloyd, a lawyer and former councillor on Lismore City Council, told the planning panel the public exhibition and community consultation held by Richmond Valley Council had been unfair and insufficient.

“The community have not been genuinely consulted nor afforded procedural fairness,” she said.

Our Sustainable Future Community Group – Bentley protesting the proposed mega quarry expansion.

“A public meeting called after the DA (development application) was a backwards way of community consultation.”

R&S Contracting Pty Ltd proposes to construct and operate a hard rock quarry (Bentley Quarry) to extract up to 300,000 tonnes per annum and up to 2000 tonnes per day.

The traffic impact assessment found the development will generate 140 truck movements per day.

Rosemary Joseph, a Bentley resident of 22 years, told the panel the community’s concern with the quarry expansion had been addressed in a “dismissive” manner.

“To say that 140 truck and trailer movements today will have no impact on road safety, and to dismiss concerns by simply saying that all drivers need to obey road rules is absurd,” she said.

Fellow Bentley resident Peter Kerle claimed Richmond Valley Council had dismissed community concerns as being “inconsequential”.

“Social impacts appear also to have been treated as if they were an issue that could not defeat the application for the quarry, both by the council and by the (applicant) and the documents before this panel suggest only conditions that should accompany approval,” he said.

The site is about 214 hectares in area and the closest occupied residence is approximately 1.25km east of the proposed development (and some 14 kilometres west of Lismore).

Bentley residents are digging in over plans to expand a hard rock quarry.

The applicants, R&S Contracting, said in their environmental impact statement that the “relatively isolated” location of the quarry meant that “large scale community consultation was considered unnecessary”.

Richmond Valley Council officers seemed to agree, because there were no objections raised towards the development from staff, and the 216 objections from concerned residents during community consultation were considered “satisfactorily addressed” or “not considered to warrant refusal of the proposed development”.

The issues raised in the submissions largely relate to traffic and road condition, socio-economic impact, visual and rural amenity, land use conflict, noise and air quality impacts.

Aliison Kelly, president of Friends of the Koala, said the proposed quarry sits on the western edge of the Far North East Hinterlands and threatens the habitat of koalas.

“Friends of the Koala opposes this expansion as we believe it will have a negative effect on koalas and other wildlife species by building a large and substantial barrier to habitat connectivity in the area,” she said.

Bentley Quarry has been contacted for comment.