The City of Greater Bendigo has told the company to immediately stop using the site to access its crushing facility next door, and remove any waste being stored without a lease or permit.

Planning and Development director Prue Mansfield said the company did not have permission to be on the site.

“Legally, he is trespassing – they don’t have permission to be on the site,’’ she said.

“We are hoping he will understand how serious that is and stop doing that.

“We always try to work with people to solve problems and not come down like policemen, but he needs to find an appropriate site and get appropriate permits.

“We are working with Hopley and another company who also need room to expand to find them appropriate locations, just as we do with any business in town .’’

The city worked with Hopley Demolitions in 2007 and 2008 after complaints from neighbours about its Eaglehawk storage facility.

Ms Mansfield said the company did not have permits at that time and its operations were prohibited within the zoning guidelines.

In keeping with the city’s philosophy to educate, try to help, warn and then take action, council officers worked with Hopley Demolitions to find an alternate parcel of land.

That was found in White Hills, alongside the old tip.

A legitimate lease was drawn up and permits were issued for a crushing facility.

“As he got busier, he started encroaching on the other area,’’ Ms Mansfield said.

“The council started telling him he was encroaching without permission to use the land and without permits.’’

A series of conversations took place, with the first formal correspondence being held in July last year.

“Our approach was to try to regularise the process and sort out a lease,” Ms Mansfield said.

“We think his business of removing waste and crushing it to turn into reusable materials is a good thing – that is exactly what we want to have happen, but it has got to be in the right place.’’

The city, which leases the land for rehabilitation purposes from the Department of Environment and Primary Industries, needed permission to sub-lease the land and consider planning permits to Hopley Demolition to continue on the site.

“We commissioned a report, seeking assurances it was safe while that process was completed – but the advice to us is that the level of unknowns are so high that it creates an unacceptable risk,’’ she said.

Hopley Demolition was then told to stop using the land.

“We have a long term responsibility for that site on behalf of our community,” Ms Mansfield said.

“We need to remediate the site so it is safe.

“We don’t want to make this any harder or with any additional expense to be borne by our community.

“This relates to our stewardship of the site – we knew that and never stepped away from that.’’

Ms Mansfield said it could be possible for the land to be used for such a purpose, but deciding that would require a comprehensive assessment including a hydrogeological report, geotechnical report, environmental audit report and environmental management report – all of which could take up to two years, and with no guarantees. 

“And of course as a local government authority, we then have a public process to go through when we make land available to other parties,’’ she said.

Read more:

-Hopley Demolition told to clean up act

-City of Greater Bendigo explains Hopley Demolition situation