$100m Cambria Green resort plan will bring more business to Swansea, says project’s proponent

UPDATED: SWANSEA businesses stand to benefit from an influx of high-end visitors to Tasmania’s East Coast, an investor in a proposed $100 million development says.

The main street of Swansea on Tasmania’s East Coast. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

SWANSEA businesses stand to benefit from an influx of high-end visitors to Tasmania’s East Coast through a $100m luxury resort at Dolphin Sands, an investor in the development says.

On Tuesday night the Glamorgan Spring Bay council approved a request to change the planning scheme to allow the staged Cambria Green development to proceed via a public consultation process.

It will then go to the Tasmanian Planning Commission before a development application is submitted to council.

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The development includes a 120-room luxury hotel, a golf course, 70 villas and 240 units, an 80-unit health retreat, 80 apartments, a village, function and conference facilities, improvements to an existing airstrip and upgrades to the 1820s Cambria homestead.

The proposed area for a $100 million eco-resort and golf course near Dolphin Sands on Tasmania’s East Coast.

Ronald Hu is the chief executive for Cambria Green Agriculture and Tourism Development, which represents an international consortium of investors in the project. He is also an investor.

“At the moment along the East Coast there are very few facilities for these types of visitors, so a lot of people turn away, according to the research we have done,” Mr Hu said.

“We won’t decentralise the community and we are not going into competition with the local business and operators.”

Mr Hu said by attracting high-end visitors to stay in the area, the consortium would bring more business to existing Swansea operators.

He said the plan would enable visitors to stay on the East Coast rather than return to Launceston or Hobart after playing golf or attending a wedding.

“These high-end people are normally wealthier than the normal tourists, so based on that logic that is how we have framed our business model,” he said.

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However, Tasmanian Conservation Trust director Peter McGlone questioned why a draft development application had not been submitted so councillors and the public could consider the project’s exact details before consultation.

“I can’t pre-empt the Tasmanian Planning Commission decision but I don’t think a decision can be made unless they [Cambria Green] provide more information,” he said. “The Commission can ask the proponent for more information.”

Mr McGlone said the nearby Moulting Lagoon Reserve was a protected wetlands area home to bird species and had concerns that a golf course nearby could affect its biodiversity and water quality. He added that land should not be cleared.

“There is ample cleared land for the resort development and we’d like to see that [used] rather than clearing that,” he said.

But Mr Hu said he had hired the best consultants in Tasmania and said concerns people may raise had already been discussed.

“They have done an extensive survey along the Dolphin Sands where the golf course is proposed and [wildlife biologist] Nick Mooney has physically been there with cameras to trace all the animals, wombats and devils,” he said.

“They are going to give us the recommendation on what we need to do to make sure we don’t interfere with the wildlife there.”