Fuel heats up

By Tania Martin
UPWEY’S Hume Street residents fear a proposed solid fuel depot could spell disaster if approved.
They believe the depot at 215 Glenfern Road, would pose a serious fire risk to the region.
The proposal is for the storage and sale of firewood.
Hume Street resident, Amanda said she was also concerned an increase in traffic would be a major issue if the development went ahead.
She also said noise would be a major issue as it would be a seven-days operation with trucks coming and going all the time.
“This application would affect so many people … we don’t want to turn this area in a noisy environment,” Amanda said.
Residents have also raised concern over the timing of the application.
Amanda said many people were still away on holidays and wouldn’t get the chance to submit an objection before the January 19 deadline.
However, shire spokesman James Martin said the advertising period had already been extended.
He said it first went out on 16 December and residents had until January 19 which is more than the required 14-day notification period.
Mr Martin said the shire would continue to accept submissions until the afternoon the proposal was due to go before the council.
He said so far seven submissions had been received by the council.
“It’s likely a consultation meeting involving the applicant and the submitters will be organised to discuss concerns,” Mr Martin said.
Resident, Anne also said the noise and traffic were also a major concern.
She said it was an inappropriate development for the area and would make an already busy area even more dangerous to road users.
“We all moved here for the peace and quiet, not to have it degraded by noise … it’s going to be horrendous and once you get something like this in there is no turning back,” Anne said.
Anne said many people were concerned about the increased fire risk in an already dangerous area.
Hume Street’s Belinda believes the area should remain commercial free.
“It’s an inappropriate location in a high-fire-risk area,” she said.
Belinda said the roads wouldn’t be able to cope if the proposed depot had a fire rip through it.
“We saw with the Birdsland fires how the roads were chokers with people fleeing from their homes,” she said.
Mr Martin said fire risk issues would be assessed as part of the planning process.
No date has been set for the application to go before a council meeting.