August 16, 2012
State Government red tape is strangling agricultural expansion in the region, the South Burnett Regional Council heard at its monthly meeting in Kingaroy yesterday.
And the situation is unlikely to change until reforms are made to the Local Government Act towards the end of this year which will return more planning control to councils.
The SBRC was debating the expansion of a piggery at 330 Cridlands Road in Abbeywood, near Hivesville.
Councillors were told that Mr Peter Bleys, the owner of the property, originally wanted to expand his existing piggery operation from 3500 Standard Pig Units (spu) to 6500 spu.
However, because the property had been mapped as as containing potential strategic cropping land, Mr Bleys found he’d face between $5000 and $43,000 in extra costs to prove to the Department of Environment and Resource Management that the land the units would be sited on wasn’t strategic cropping land at all.
In addition, DERM had imposed tight deadlines on its approval processes and the Council had needed to issue a development permit quickly or Mr Bleys would likely face further costs and many months of delays.
Because of the difficulties facing the proposal, the Council heard that Mr Bleys had since opted to reduce his planned expansion from seven sheds to just one new piggery shed.
Mayor Wayne Kratzmann thanked Council staff for working with the applicant to speed the process through Council, noting that they’d helped save Mr Bleys long delays and even bigger costs by doing so.
But he expressed his disappointment that excessive legislation imposed by the previous State Government was making many agricultural expansion projects much harder than they should be.
“A lot of this red tape flies in the face of common sense,” he said, “and I look forward to the local government reforms that Minister David Crisafulli promised to deliver in November when he paid our Council a visit recently.”
Cr Keith Campbell agreed with the Mayor, noting that the Abbeywood piggery expansion “reeks of (the) impediments put in front of agriculturalists which hinder their ability to do anything”.
Cr Cheryl Dalton said she felt excessive red tape was holding South Burnett farmers back.
“Current State legislation is actively blocking substantial expansion in this region,” she said.
“I know of another piggery that wants to make a major expansion, and I’m aware of another big development that’s also waiting in the wings.”
The proposal to approve the single shed Abbeywood piggery expansion was carried unopposed.
