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Hon. John Thwaites MLA
Minister for the Environment
Dear Mr Thwaites,
Ensuring the Substantial Impact of Boating Development in Mornington
Harbour is Not Further Increased
Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc, a federation of 16 conservation
organizations around Port Phillip, is concerned about the submission by
Mornington Yacht Club to the former Minister for Planning, Hon. Mary
Delahunty, in late 2004 for a supposed “Safe Harbour”
at Mornington.
PPCC Inc. sees this as yet another call for a marina there.
Revival of a Discredited Proposal: The Yacht
Club’s 1990 marina push would have overwhelmed the small restricted bay
on the north side of the scenic and historic geological feature of Schnapper Point.
It sought a 150-berth marina, a large extension of Mornington Pier, and the
necessary Planning Scheme amendment. After public input to a Panel, the then
Planning Minister, Hon. Robert Maclellan, wrote to the then Shire of
Mornington in 1994 stating that “… the option for a marina in Mornington
Harbour
is no longer appropriate. Any future proposal for a marina in the vicinity of
Mornington should be outside the Mornington
Harbour,
and would require an extensive, in depth study.”
Yacht Club Needs to Recognize
Harbour’s
Limits: We and we trust, you, recognize the Yacht Club’s unfortunate
failure to accept that its site has reached the limit of acceptable
expansion. The Club should consider itself extremely lucky to have achieved
the extent of occupation of public coast and sea it has, and it should be
encouraged to concentrate on refining and fairly sharing its present
advantages among its members, and minimizing its existing environmental
impact on its site and its already congested surroundings.
Threats to Mothers Beach
and Overall
Harbour Ambience: Mothers
Beach, which is a
popular, safe and well-sheltered shallow beach eminently suitable, as its
name suggests, for families with small children, is plainly threatened by any
further expansion of the Yacht Club near it, particularly by the proposed
increase in power boats, with noise, wash and oil. The captioned aerial
photograph at www.vicnet.net.au/~phillip/aerfo_g6.htm
explains that. The view of the pier from the beach and the view of the beach
from the pier, are now across the water surface, which is interrupted only by
yachts on swing moorings. The considerable intensification of mooring density
on that space planned, together with the accompanying hardware protruding
from the sea, will destroy that quiet and restful ambience and scenery.
Faults in Yacht Club’s Assertions: The Mornington
Yacht Club did not tell the whole truth, by its neglect in not disclosing to
Mrs Delahunty the earlier Planning Minister’s emphatic rejection of its
earlier plans in 1994.
Furthermore the Yacht Club, as Mornington Environment
Association Inc. has also informed you, has claimed:
-
“the current proposal is less of an environmental risk than earlier
proposals” - with no supporting evidence given
- “the
wavescreen sought for Mornington is an identical concept to that at
Blairgowrie” - disregarding Blairgowrie sand build-up, and
Mornington’s much more enclosed U-shape, being less
scoured and more of a sand trap
- “assumes pier works be extended
partially to provide further protection along the northern end of the
pier” - this assertion goes well
beyond the last consultations on pier work in 2002, which agreed
to no more than a wave screen alongside the pier, but not beyond it.
Wavescreen Problems: Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron has asked Mornington Peninsula
Shire for a permit to extend its sea-damaged wavescreen by 2 m down to the
sea floor for more shelter, despite sand build-up inshore of it already. Its
failure, and planned reversion to a full barrier, renders arguments for a
wavescreen for Mornington extremely dubious.
Victorian Coastal Strategy: The map of Port Phillip associated
with the Access Principle of this
Strategy is alarmingly discordant, and outdated, in its disparate
designations of two sites marked with the inverted yellow triangle symbol
below, Mornington
and Frankston,
compared with the blue square marking Patterson River, and the complete
absence of a marking at Safety Beach. It is most odd that both the Mornington
and Frankston sites,
as the linked captioned photographs reveal, already have boating facilities
that are significant, but that do not quite yet inordinately overwhelm their
surrounding coastal landscapes and uses, whereas Patterson River and Safety
Beach (Melway 97G5&6, 150E11&12 respectively) are the sites of very
large and dominating marinas, whose existence is ignored in this key planning
document for the coast. The document fails to note the considerable marina
capacity extant at Patterson River (it notes it only as a Regional Boat Ramp)
and the massive marina being built at Safety Beach,
both of which would appear to qualify for a yellow triangle. Quite unlike Mornington
and Frankston, both
the Safety Beach
and the Patterson
River sites are on flat,
low parts of the coast that are not outstandingly striking.
In
contrast to its ignoring of Patterson
River and Safety
Beach, the map targets Mornington
and Frankston each
with a yellow triangle, earmarking them for a “Safe Harbour”
as defined in the extract from the Strategy below. PPCC Inc. is well aware of
the insidious use of the contrived term “Safe Harbour” (would
anybody advocate building an unsafe harbour?) as a tactical
euphemism to replace the unpalatable word “marina”, which has
fallen into disrepute.
The
Campaign for Closely-spaced “Safe Harbours” along the Coast is
Misguided: PPCC Inc. Policy Statement
No. 14, “Marinas in or Near Port Phillip” explains the
reasons PPCC Inc. has for resisting the concept described by the coloured and
tendentious term “Safe Harbour”. Of course no harbours should be
unsafe, and an obvious first approach if safety is being seriously
considered, should be, rather than providing new harbours, to either remove
any existing unsafe harbours, or to make them safe, provided that does not
involve any significant environmental damage.
A second approach is to work for far safer boating operations at sea
away from the harbour. Major improvements in training of boating crews, and
the licensing, and periodic inspection, re-assessment and retesting of crews
and their boats, motors, safety and communications equipment, and anchoring
and mooring provisions are needed. There should be a greater degree of
seriousness and formality in relation to mandatory obtaining of a weather
forecast covering the period of the voyage plan, and an onus on the crew to
comply with published criteria for the relevant plan. The growth of mobile
telephone and internet use greatly facilitates the practicability of such
measures. All of those improvements are very much cheaper for the public than
massive investment in building and maintaining an oversupply of harbours,
they are more easily organized on a user-pays basis, and they are certainly
more environmentally satisfactory.
Your Response would be Appreciated: Port Phillip
Conservation Council Inc. trusts that you will give the points made above
your full consideration. We would appreciate being informed of your response
to our concerns, please.
Yours sincerely,
Jenny Warfe
Secretary, Phillip Conservation Council Inc.
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