Tribunal revokes permit for Toolangi zip line tourist attraction

Up to 30,000 visitors a year would have gone to a new zip line course near Melbourne before plans were torn up amid strawberry industry fears.

The owners of the Enchanted Adventure Garden at Arthurs Seat (pictured) wanted to build a zip line course northeast of Melbourne. Picture: Josie Hayden

The owners of the popular Enchanted Adventure Garden at Arthurs Seat have had their plans for a major tourist attraction Toolangi torn up.

Yarra Ranges Council gave entrepreneur Michael Savage’s company the green light to build a zip line and high ropes course on a block of native forest in 2019.

But earlier this week the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal sided with a group of local strawberry growers and revoked the council’s planning permit amid fears an influx of tourists could jeopardise the pristine local soils the farmers rely on.

Documents filed with the council and the tribunal show Mr Savage hoped to attract as many as 30,000 visitors per year, and employ up to 40 casual staff, in a town with a population of less than 500.

A zip line course in Toolangi would have created up to 40 jobs. Picture: Josie Hayden

Mr Savage’s legal team argued the attraction would have been especially popular in school holidays, and with school camps using the neighbouring Camp Toolangi.

The local strawberry runners co-op had repeatedly opposed the development, arguing it posed an unacceptable biosecurity risk to their farming operations.

VCAT member Ian Potts, in revoking the council’s planning permit, said the strawberry farmers feared the visitors would bring with them pathogens and pests.

A spread of pathogens and pests could end up compromising the local industry’s ability to send plants interstate.

“The Co-op argues this would adversely impact and undermine a nationally significant agricultural activity,” Mr Potts said.

Mr Potts said there was potential for a bigger tourism industry in the surrounding area, but said the economy of Toolangi itself relied on being isolated from throngs of tourists, with all the risks they posed to the agricultural industry.

“Toolangi is not an area identified as a distinctive area of landscape that is a tourism destination or one where tourism is encouraged,” he said.

The future of the site where the proposed zip line course was to be built remains unclear.

Mr Savage could not be reached for comment.