AT THE ‘Inquiry into Local Government Funding and Services’ in September this year, Bass Coast Shire CEO Greg Box told a panel of State MPs, which incidentally included beleaguered Liberal MP Moira Deeming, that the shire struggled to maintain its assets with a budget smaller than the one enjoyed by Carey Grammar School.
“We have got enormous assets right across the board that we are trying to service and manage. Our capability around that in terms of finance is reducing over time,” he said.
One of those assets is the ‘Gurdies Reserve’, a small bushland reserve of approximately 52.2 hectares, bordered by the Bass Highway to the west, private property to the north and east (including the adjacent Woodland Close residential estate), and The Gurdies Nature Conservation Reserve (managed by Parks Victoria) to the south.
The highly volatile Gurdies bushfire over the past few days did not start in the shire-owned reserve, we are told, but it was the first place where the fire took hold, reportedly a very difficult area for emergency services to access, made more so by storms this year which reportedly brought down trees, or left limbs hanging precariously.
In November 2019, the Bass Coast Shire Council voted to establish the Gurdies Reserve as its third Native Vegetation Offset site (although it was designated as such as early as 2007), saying it could generate around $1.1 million annually through the sale of offset credits to permit holders.
In fact, the site is protected in perpetuity (forever) to offset the impact of three VicRoads projects, the Bass Highway duplication (Stages 5 and 6), the Westernport Highway duplication (from Cranbourne-Frankston Road to North Road), and Cranbourne-Frankston Road to North Road (Stages 1, 2, and 3).
But there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
In June 2019, the shire had bushfire management consultants, Terramatrix Pty Ltd, prepare an ‘Asset Protection Zone Assessment’ for the shire in which there is a comprehensive list of management recommendations, specifically about how to deal with the bushfire risk, not only to the asset itself but also to the adjoining residents.
They even war-gamed almost the exact scenario that happened in the past week.
Among other notes: “The mapped APZ (Asset Protection Zone) shows that additional work is needed north of 30 Woodland Close, west of 40 and 41 Woodland Close, and south of Hendy Lane.
Vegetation management in these additional areas should focus on understorey management, reducing the elevated and near-surface fuel layers, and removing dead fine fuels such as fallen branches.”
Fire breaks and access tracks are to be regularly maintained.
The jury is out as to whether the shire has discharged its responsibilities in relation to the reserve and to the nearby homeowners and property owners, but as a ratepayer, I’m not sure I want an organisation that is supposed to specialise in roads, rubbish, rates and town planning to be responsible for such a complex and potentially risky venture – $1.1 million income or not.
Other municipalities have arrangements with catchment management authorities for handling their native vegetation offset issues, but, in any case, why is a small municipality on the south-east coast getting involved in highway duplication projects that are nowhere near this area?
Talk about staying in your own lane!
