Hundreds of trucks invade quiet Melbourne suburb to dump soil into ‘unlicensed landfill’

Hundreds of trucks have invaded a quiet Melbourne suburb causing a “major disturbance”. Now residents are fighting back.

About 300 truckloads of soil are being dumped into an “unlicensed landfill” every day off a quiet suburban lane in Melbourne’s outer north.

Government departments are at loggerheads over how the operation was allowed without a planning permit, while residents off Chapel Lane in Doreen have expressed outrage at the “major disturbance”.

State Labor MP for Yan Yean Danielle Green said Victoria’s environmental watchdog had cleared the site of any pollution but said the site needed stricter policing.

“It’s so obvious that what’s going on here is not agricultural, it’s an industrial landfill,” she said.

“It’s not being policed properly at all, it’s happened without a permit and people’s land values are being affected by this. No one wants to live next to a landfill.”

Doreen residents say hundreds of trucks are passing through and dumping soil onto nearby vacant land every day.

Chapel Lane resident Chris Hughes said he had woken up every morning to a queue of about a dozen trucks waiting to dump soil on to nearby vacant land in the past two weeks.

“We just live off a little country lane and now we have to put up with 300 trucks rolling through here every day,” he said.

“You can imagine the ruckus and rumble, not to mention the dust. All of us are questioning how this was allowed.”

 MP Danielle Green says an unlicensed landfill site in Doreen needs to be policed.

Nillumbik Council mayor Karen Egan said a loophole in state government planning scheme provisions meant the council had no authority to issue a stop-work order.

“There’s 300 trucks passing through a small country lane, they’ve ripped up the road and no one is checking to see what is being dumped is actually clean soil,” she said.

The alleged damage at Chapel Lane in Doreen.

But the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning said the responsibility was in the hands of local government.

“It is a matter for the council to investigate and if necessary enforce the requirements of its planning scheme,” a spokesperson said.

NCA NewsWire was told Earth Solutions Group is co-ordinating the operation in Doreen.

According to its website, the company is involved in major backfilling projects for quarries, large-scale residential developments and major capping projects for redundant landfills.

The company’s general manager, who did not want to be named or provide official comment, did not confirm where the soil was coming from, only that management was in talks with council officers.

[e-mail]