City will ponder

By Elizabeth Lillis
CARDINIA Shire Council is going to use the next two months to decide where it stands on the proposed Port of Hastings expansion.
Shire spokesman Doug Evans said the council would take advantage of the extended deadline for comment on the Port of Hastings Corporation’s (POHC) Port of Hastings Land Use and Transport Strategy.
Public comments on the strategy can be submitted until 14 March 2007.
The current strategy indicates a proposed extension of a freight rail line through the communities of Cardinia and Clyde to join on to the Gippsland line.
“A position paper will be developed and presented to council in time to make a submission in March,” Mr Evans said.
He said the council had met Port of Hastings officials in late December and also wanted to discuss issues with the City of Casey.
Community members have mobilised after the announcement of the extension of the comment period.
Cardinia resident Catherine Manning said members of the Southern Victorian Community Action Group had distributed 3000 flyers and posters alerting people in the Cardinia Shire, City of Casey and South Gippsland Shire to a public meeting on the port proposal organised for tonight.
Two other public meetings have been held.
“We are expecting a big turnout,” she said. “One main concern is development overlays being placed on people’s properties,” said Mrs Manning, who is opposed to the port expansion.
Mrs Manning said many people in Cardinia were concerned about the impact of a development overlay being placed on properties marked in the plan as being on the route of the freight line extension.
State Member for Bass Ken Smith said he was concerned property prices could be adversely affected if development overlays were put in place.
“I’m concerned for the residents of these small communities,” he said.
Mr Smith, who sees economic value in the expansion, called on the port corporation to sort out the rail transport issues rather than having vague lines on a map.
Mrs Manning said she was expecting highlevel representation at the meeting from the councils and the corporation.
The City of Casey has told the corporation that while it supports the expansion of the port, it will not support a rail link through Casey.
Casey mayor Colin Butler said the council would support, in principle, an alternative “dualuse transport corridor” of rail and road freight on the Western Port Highway to Dandenong South, with the possibility to then link into Gippsland via the Pakenham rail line and the Monash Freeway.
Tonight’s public meeting on the proposed port expansion is at Cranbourne Public Hall, in Cranbourne, at 7.30pm.