Hopley Recycling may be about to get an eleventh-hour reprieve within a week of a City of Greater Bendigo deadline to vacate the former White Hills tip site where part of the business is based.
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City of Greater Bendigo councillor Elise Chapman will move a motion at this week’s council meeting to extend the deadline from June 1 to December 1.
The site has been the subject of tensions between the company and the council since six councillors voted to oppose an application by director Ken Hopley to use the land in July last year.
Cr Chapman said reports which would potentially dispute the council’s assertions that the site posed a threat to the environment were due to be made public on May 31.
“There’s been numerous reports done and written by directors and other people and there’s been extensive testing,” she said.
“My understanding is that some of those reports will be made public on the 31st of May – and for the record I’ve never believed that there was any real risk – and those reports, after people read them they can make up their own mind as to what they think.”
Cr Chapman said Hopley had created jobs in Bendigo and could process up to 96 per cent of demolition waste produced in the city.
“I understand that there’s 25 employees up there, now they all have families,” she said.
Hopley was ordered by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in January, to vacate the council land by June 1, but VCAT deputy president Mark Dwyer left the door open for the council to extend the deadline if it so chose.
Mr Dwyer said “even on a worst case scenario” the company should be able to vacate the land by the end of the year.
“If Hopley was serious and commenced the removal process immediately, even on its own material it should be able to remove the unlawful stockpiles by approximately 1 December, 2016,” he said.
“If Hopley makes real and substantial progress towards removing all material by 1 June 2016, but for practical reasons acceptable to the council, is unable to quite achieve that, the council may be willing to allow a short extension to facilitate final compliance … my order thus provides for a new date of 1 June, 2016 or such later date as the council may agree in writing.”
Cr Chapman stressed her views were her own and not those of the council as a whole.
Jason Walls
Bendigo born and bred, interested in business malpractice, crime, social justice and corruption in all its forms. Got a tip? 5434 4476
Bendigo born and bred, interested in business malpractice, crime, social justice and corruption in all its forms. Got a tip? 5434 4476
