Yarra Ranges Open Air Burning by-law draft changes could affect farming and agricultural practices
ANGRY farmers have hit back at Yarra Ranges Council plans to tighten burning off laws in the valley.
Outer East
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ANGRY farmers have hit back at Yarra Ranges Council plans to tighten burning off laws in the valley.
Councillors heard 19 of the 223 submissions on controversial draft changes to the Open Air Burning law with some rural residents up in arms that restrictions would affect their way of life.
Lilydale & Yarra Valley Leader previously reported Mt Evelyn resident Frank Smith said plans to stop burn offs when the wind speed rose above 10km/h would cause dense fog and health issues.
YARRA RANGES OPEN AIR BURNING BY-LAW REVIEW CONSIDERS BANNING FIRES UNLESS WIND IS UNDER 10KM/H
YARRA RANGES POLICE CRACKING DOWN ON ILLEGAL BURN-OFFS
Cr Tim Heenan said the Dandenong Ranges community was different to the valley and the rural sector should be taken out of the equation. He said people in the hills wanted stricter laws to try and stop the smoke drifting across numerous suburbs. “But it should not be one size fits all,” Cr Heenan said.
A Gruyere farmer, on a 40ha property, who did not want to be named, said the plans were not conducive to maintaining a good farming practices. “As far as I’m concerned their (council) communication was totally inadequate,” the farmer said.
He said the consultation process had not taken rural resident’s feedback into consideration with information sessions held in shopping centres from 10am to 1pm “90 per cent of those people (at the pop-up sessions) would have been urban.
Three Bridges apple grower Kevin Sanders has 40ha of orchard and looks after 121ha of bushland and questioned why there needed to be a “blanket” rules across the whole shire. “Yarra Ranges is trying to manage us, and we are good managers of our own property,” he said.
Mr Sanders said at the end of each season he has 2.5ha of apple trees that need to be felled and burned within 24 hours, otherwise they become too wet.
“People don’t understand what we have to do,” he said.
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