Pressure is mounting on the state government to release an independent planning panel report it received more than a month ago assessing an application to expand the size of the Ravenhall landfill.
Planning Minister Richard Wynne last year called in waste management giant Cleanaway’s application and appointed a panel to hear submissions.
Hearings were held last September, with residents under the impression the panel’s report would be released in February.
But the state government remains tight-lipped on when the report will be made public, with a spokesman saying the matter had been referred to the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning for further advice.
“The minister recently received the report on the Ravenhall tip expansion and will carefully consider its content before making a decision,” the spokesman said.
“The report raises a number of complex issues and it’s important the government takes the necessary steps to get its ruling right.”
Residents have started a petition calling on Mr Wynne to make the report public, saying the community “have the right to know what’s in the panel’s report”.
Thousands of people made a submission to the panel last year objecting to Cleanaway’s application, which proposed expanding the landfill site by 311 hectares to the west and north-west of the existing area, and the permit’s life to 2069.
Stop the Tip campaigner Marion Martin urged the minister to consider releasing the report as soon as possible.
“He’s got some information and we want to know what it is,” she said. “Until we know what his decision is we can’t plan what our next step will be. We were under the impression [the report would be made public] by the end of January, [early] February. It’s now the end of February and it’s disappointing we haven’t been given information on what’s happening.”
Western Metropolitan MP Bernie Finn questioned the state government in Parliament last week, calling on the minister “as a matter of urgency” to publicly release the report. He said the tip “stinks to high heaven” and locals were concerned about the impact of its expansion.
Brimbank mayor John Hedditch has also added his voice to the objections, saying it was a “no-brainer” the expansion must be stopped.
“Brimbank and the west should not be used as a dumping ground any more,” Cr Hedditch said. A spokeswoman for Cleanaway said the company hadn’t seen the report.
