Gold Coast quarry expansion: residents briefed on plans before council

A quarry in a Gold Coast suburb has lodged plans to expand with council despite nearby residents claiming they already feel ‘blast tremors’ through their homes.

THE Oxenford quarry on the eastern side of the Coomera River will be expanded under new plans lodged with the Gold Coast City Council.

But some residents living at the back of the quarry are concerned, claiming they “already feel blast tremors” through their homes.

The Coast-based family quarry company Nucrush Group has launched a series of public consultation sessions as the planning approval process begins at city hall.

Operators want to enlarge and realign the quarry footprint by 18 hectares while protecting an additional 7 hectares of bushland habitat in the north east currently approved for extraction.

Trucks at the Oxenford quarry.

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Apart from protecting bushland the operation itself will move the quarry away from homes to the north-east, operators say.

The net increase in the quarry operational footprint will be approximately 11 hectares but an additional 56 hectares is also being nominated as buffer or green zone.

Of the total site area of 151 hectares, about 56% will be protected as buffer land and biodiversity corridor as the quarry’s lifetime at Oxenford is extended.

Nucrush CEO Declan Mackle told the Bulletin: ‘We’re not changing the amount of rock we quarry annually, so there are no changes to traffic or truck trips. We’ve been operating here as residential projects have developed nearby.

“Our good neighbour relations are important to us, so people living in homes built around us in the last 27 years have been a key consideration in our planning and design. We are looking forward to discussing the plans with our neighbours.”

Plans for the Oxenford quarry - yellow line is the existing approval footprint, red line the proposed extraction boundary and black line is the site boundary.

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Technical reports to council say the existing operations — 7am to 6pm Monday to Friday and between 8am and midday on Saturdays and public holidays — would continue and no increase should occur in traffic.

“The proposed realignment of the extraction boundary will not change potential noise associated with haulage of material on the public road network,” a technical report said.

Briefings have been held with the Rotary Club of Coomera Valley and community drop-in sessions staged at Oxenford coffee shops.

Area councillor William Owen-Jones in several Facebook posts to residents encouraged property owners to check the company’s website and Facebook page.

Community consultation on the Oxenford quarry.

“The application seeks to both expand, and further regulate the phases of the quarry footprint,” he told residents.

Quarry operators said the new phased development would maximise access to quality hard rock which makes concrete, road base and other construction materials used locally as the Coast provides infrastructure for a population boom.

Some residents living at the back of the quarry have posted on Cr Owen-Jones’ Facebook page, asking for more input to the planning application a “we already feel blast tremors through our home”.

Cr Owen-Jones who confirmed there would be a period for public submissions described the assessment process as “complex” as council officers requested more information and the application was referred to state and federal agencies.