Premier says Spring Creek development ban will be kept

Torquay’s community campaigned hard to ban development in the Spring Creek valley. Independent advice recommended it. That’s prompting the government to defend its latest move.

Premier Daniel Andrews has doubled down on state government moves to ignore or circumvent independent planning advice and court rulings relating to two planned projects in the region.

Mr Andrews also backed the government’s ability to deal with challenges in the health sector including wait times at Geelong hospital’s emergency department that have blown out and an urgent elective surgery waiting list which has doubled since the January.

Mr Andrews said the government had promised the Torquay community the Spring Creek valley wouldn’t be subject to residential development.

It comes after the government ignored independent advice that recommended residential development in the valley.

The Spring Creek valley.

“There’s a pattern of doing exactly what we said we would do. I said (the Torquay town boundary would remain at) Duffield’s Rd and not an inch further,” Mr Andrews said.

Developer Parklea, which owns land in the Valley, is fighting the government on the issue in the Supreme Court.

Parklea launched legal action after the government banned residential development on its land west of Duffields Rd in April.

Parklea’s lawyers said then Planning Minister Richard Wynne’s development ban should be quashed because he “acted irrationally or unreasonably”; was “affected by bias”; and failed to properly consider housing supply and affordability.

The case which could leave the government with a large compensation bill in due to return to court in October.

Mr Andrews — in the Geelong region on Friday toured Leopold Primary School where the government has funded an inclusive playground — also backed the planning minister’s move to torpedo legal action that threatened the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere due to be built northwest of Geelong.

Daniel Andrews toured Leopold primary school with Bellarine Labor candidate Alison Marchant. Grade 2 student Hamish showed them plans for a new playground. Picture: Mark Wilson

“We make commitments, we honour them. Just like wind farms, we’ve been very clear that we want more renewable energy; it’s the cheapest, most reliable, best form of new energy to put downward pressure on prices to keep the lights on and to create lots and lots of jobs.

“So we make absolutely no apology and pushing forward with the most aggressive, the most important and the most successful renewable energy agenda anywhere in our nation.”

In May a major investor in the $2bn Golden Plains wind farm, Tag Energy, told the government the project was a financial risk because of ongoing legal action.

That prompted the minister to change planning law in the area so project no longer needed a permit which ended three years of legal wrangling.

Mr Andrews said the government had a strong plan for the health sector including for more doctors, nurses and paramedics.

“We are recruiting more of them, thousands more of them. We’ve got a comprehensive plan, more beds, more patients treated faster, more ambulance staff... then (more) staff all the way through our health system.

“We’ve recruited 8,5000 additional staff, which is no mean feat. But we need more again, and that’s why there’s a $12bn plan. 7000 new staff, 5000 of those are nurses to provide better care closer to home.”

Mr Andrews said the health system was facing perhaps its most challenging winter and the government was willing to buy private hospitals to ease the pressure on the public system.

Originally published as Premier says Spring Creek development ban will be kept