State Government pushing ahead with Haining Farm plans despite Don Valley bushfire concerns
QUESTIONS about bushfire danger still surround State Government plans to revegetate a Don Valley dairy farm, despite the project pushing ahead.
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QUESTIONS about bushfire danger still surround State Government plans to revegetate a Don Valley dairy farm, despite the project pushing ahead.
The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning is asking the community to provide feedback on designs it has for the future of Haining Farm.
It is also inviting the public to have its say on the Yellingbo Conservation Area draft plan, an area which encompasses public waterways and land throughout the Yarra Ranges, and will now include Haining Farm.
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But fed up residents are frustrated their concerns are being ignored.
As reported in Lilydale & Yarra Valley Leader, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning’s wants to turn the dairy farm into a wildlife corridor for critically endangered species by planting more than 315,000 trees and shrubs.
The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning bushfire risk report on turning Haining Farm into a wildlife corridor says the revegetation would not cause danger to surrounding communities.
But Don Valley resident Bronwyn Page, who survived Black Saturday and has been lobbying State Government departments and a fire expert for more than a year for answers she says the community is due.
Ms Page said community concerns about a potential fire at Haining Farm were doused with assurances by the department it would be contained by firefighters “relatively quickly”.
But she believes the department has not modelled or reported on what would happen if the fire wasn’t contained.
“This is the basis of the fire report. A bunch of assumptions,” Ms Page said.
Yarra Waterways Group member chair Rick Houlihan said one of the group’s concerns is that Haining Farm and the Yellingbo Conservation Area would not be maintained — weed and pest control — properly.
Mr Houlihan said the department had allocated $50,000 per year toward maintenance, which would not even pay for mowing.
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The department’s Port Phillip acting regional director Victoria Purdue said the government had
allocated $670,00 for bushfire mitigation measures at Haining Farm, and $50,000 per year to maintain those measures.
“The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning has modelled ignition at various sites at Haining Farm under a number of external factors, such as weather, terrain and moisture content of flammable materials,” Ms Purdue said.
She said while the Haining Farm area is in a high bushfire risk area, with mitigation measures in place the modelling showed there was zero percentage increase in bushfire risk.
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